Detection of ship targets in COSMO-SkyMed SAR images

The focus of the paper is on the exploitation of COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) SAR images for the detection of ship targets. To this purpose a suitable processing chain is proposed and two different implementations, based respectively on the 2D CA and on the GLRT, are considered and discussed. The application of the proposed technique to Single Look Complex (SLC) CSK spotlight SAR images shows its effectiveness in detecting the ships moving in the imaged scene while, at the same time, keeping the false alarms under control.