Study of Sea Clutter Influence in Ship Classification Algorithmsbased on Polarimetric SAR Inteferometry

摘要

This paper is focused to evaluate the influence of sea clutter in the performance of ship classification algorithms basedon single-pass Polarimetric SAR Interferometry (PolInSAR). For such purpose, series of numerical simulations havebeen carried out with GRECOSAR, the SAR simulator of complex targets developed by UPC. There, different types ofvessels have been considered for a TerraSAR-X like sensor and a sea surface following the two-scale wave approach.The quality of ship discrimination has been quantitatively evaluated with a novel identification method that exploits theparticular scattering properties of ships. The results show that the presence of clutter does not notably drop identificationperformance, despite negative matches can be observed in some particular situations. But the requirement of single-passinterferometric capabilities is not achieved by any of the existing orbital system. This can difficult the validation of whathas been observed in simulation environments and can be one of the most limiting factors for the practical implementationof these techniques. Ideas and possible solutions to relax the system requirements are preliminary discussed.