Exploration and Validation of Wave-Height Measurement Using Multifrequency HF Radar

AbstractFor operations across a wide range of oceanographic conditions, a radar system able to operate at more than one frequency is theoretically and experimentally recommended for robust wave measurement in recent years. To obtain more sea-state information by HF radar, a multifrequency HF (MHF) radar system, which can simultaneously operate at four frequencies at most in the band of 7.5–25 MHz, was developed by the Radio Wave Propagation Laboratory of Wuhan University in 2007. This paper mostly focuses on detailing the data process method of MHF radar wave-height estimation. According to different bands of operating frequencies, a least-mean-square (LMS) linear fitting method is adopted to calibrate wave-height estimation formulation, which is introduced by Barrick to extract significant wave height from backscatter Doppler spectra. Both the wave-height measurements of the initial and modified methods are compared with wave buoy measurements. Afterward, a data fusion algorithm of multifrequency estimat...