Ship Detection on Wide ScanSAR TerraSAR-X Images

Maritime surveillance is an important application of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite systems, and ship detection plays an important role in the maritime scenario observation. The new Wide ScanSAR TerraSAR-X mode allows larger swath coverage than previous TerraSAR-X modes, therefore the new mode is a natural choice for oceanographic observations. This abstract analyses the use of Wide ScanSAR images for ship detection applications, using a constant false alarm rate (CFAR) algorithm. Preliminary results are shown and a comparison with the StripMap mode is performed.