Sea surface scattering of hurricane maria remnants using bistatic passive radar with S-band satellite illumination

With the high number of hurricane occurrences during the fall of 2017, several data collection opportunities existed for high wind events. In particular, Hurricane Maria progressed up the eastern coast of the U.S. carrying strong winds that offered unique scenarios for sea surface scattering observations. With limited data available historically for varying geometries of bistatic radar sea clutter, data was collected using a satellite illuminator as a transmitter source for scattering measurements. The field campaign described herein utilized a custom receiver took place at the instrumented, extended pier available at the Army Field Research Facility in Duck, North Carolina. Averaged and time-evolved Doppler spectra are presented for vertical and horizontal receive polarizations.