Polar autoregressive estimation: application to the study of radar images of the sea

With the objective of using a radar transmitting in the X-band as an oceanographic instrument, it appears necessary to develop methods intended to retrieve the characteristics of a sea surface from the signal received by the radar. A fast method of processing of marine radar images is presented. It is proposed to use a three-dimensional parametric method taking account of the temporal distortion of the sea image introduced by reception of the radar signal as well as the polar form of the pixels of a radar image. Thanks to a series of polar autoregressive parameters and possibly others, it will be possible to retrieve the characteristics of the observed sea surface and to deduce the sea state.