Ship Profile Imaging Using Multipath Backscattering

This paper addresses the estimation of the height of a point scatterer over a sea surface via multipath exploitation for a High Range Resolution radar that is using pulse range compression, such as Synthetic Aperture Radars. We first focus our attention on the physical model, in particular on the specular/diffuse reflection coefficients, this coefficients being derived from the empirical Miller Brown and Vegh model. The gravity waves are also simulated since they modify the acquisition geometry such as the local grazing angle. Secondly, the signal model is derived, thus allowing an easy derivation of the time delays (direct echo and replicas), these time delays being converted into a height estimation for possible automatic ship recognition applications. Our algorithm is a non-conventional radar signal processing, in other words it uses the backscattered pulse over before range compression and demodulation. The aim of the paper is to understand for which radar and sea parameters, as well as acquisition scenes, it is possible to extract the scatterer height information using the multipath of the backscattered electromagnetic wave.