Computer Vision Techniques Applied to Capella Space VHR X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Satellite Data to Track Movement: Use Cases Of Glacial Ice and Ships

Satellites are often used to observe, understand, and track movement at the earth’s surface. SAR is an especially powerful tool for such applications due to its persistent viewing capability; it operates day or night and penetrates clouds, smoke, and other particulate cover that can occlude the ground from other instruments, like optical. There are many known techniques specific to determining motion in SAR data. However, this paper will apply an optical flow open source package, like Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), to determine motion in SAR data provided by Capella Space. Movement will be analyzed across target velocities by implementing this technique on subapertures from a single collection and across a time-series collection over a given Area of Interest (AOI). Sample use cases in this paper include large ice blocks moving through a glacial mélange and moving ships on open water.