Determination of ocean wave spectra from images of backscattered incoherent light

The application of imaging of sea surfaces has been investigated with respect to determination of sea wave spectra. Incoherent light is projected toward the sea surface, and the backscattered light is imaged with a camera. The primary scattering mechanism is assumed to be from particles suspended in the sea, so the backscattered intensity is determined primarily by the Fresnel coefficients. The ratio of the images detected at two orthogonal polarizations contains the desired information on the local slope of the sea surface, pixel by pixel, in one dimension. By integration, one can obtain the surface-height profile.