A Simple Ship Echo Identification Procedure With SeaSonde HF Radar

An island-wide high-frequency (HF) radar network was recently established for measuring coastal surface currents in Taiwan. This research attempts to extract ship echoes from the HF radar system's sea-returns. By applying a simple procedure to the cross-spectra series of the radar signals, an adaptive detection technique is used to build an adaptive threshold surface. The ship information thus derived is compared to that obtained by an automatic identification system. The capability of this procedure to detect vessels is demonstrated.