RADARSAT Derived Wind and Other Environmental Products for Maritime Operations

Project Polar Epsilon will routinely provide a large volume of RADARSAT synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery over Canadian coastal areas in order to meet high priority littoral surveillance requirements. Availability of this imagery also has implications for rapid environmental assessment operations of the Canadian Forces and other civilian users. The state of the ocean influences the performance of naval sensors, weapons, vessels, and personnel. Therefore, quantifying meteorological and oceanographic parameters and features can improve the operational performance of deployed forces. To meet this goal and to take advantage of the available data stream, we are developing a workstation that retrieves wind information from RADARSAT SAR imagery at low to moderate wind speeds, the conditions under which SAR can best detect ships and oil spills. The workstation will be designed to be co-located with Polar Epsilon's operational RADARSAT reception and processing facilities and, in addition to SAR-derived wind fields, will provide ship and oil detectability products. The operational capabilities of this workstation have the potential of improving deployed force's and civilian user's confidence in spaceborne SAR data for operational defence, security, and enforcement purposes.