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Detection of Elusive Rogue Wave with Cross-Track Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging Approach
Tung-Cheng Wang1, Jean-Fu Kiang1
1Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
|May 14, 2025
Summary
A new cross-track interferometric SAR (XTI-SAR) imaging approach effectively detects rogue waves. This method overcomes limitations of traditional SAR, enabling real-time sea surface height retrieval for enhanced maritime safety.
Area of Science:
- Oceanography and Remote Sensing
- Applied Physics and Engineering
Background:
- Rogue waves pose significant maritime hazards, causing shipwrecks and loss of life.
- Existing synthetic aperture radar (SAR) techniques struggle with real-time rogue wave detection due to nonlinearities between sea surface height and radar cross-section.
- Prompt detection is challenging due to the unpredictable nature and small footprint of rogue waves.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and evaluate a novel cross-track interferometric SAR (XTI-SAR) imaging approach for wide-area, real-time detection of rogue waves.
- To simulate sea-surface profiles with rogue waves using a probability-based model to test the XTI-SAR approach.
- To assess the performance of the XTI-SAR method by analyzing errors in rogue wave detection parameters.
Main Methods:
- Development of a cross-track interferometric SAR (XTI-SAR) imaging technique.
- Simulation of sea-surface height profiles embedding rogue waves using a probability-based model under varying wind conditions.
- Evaluation of XTI-SAR performance through metrics including peak position/height errors, footprint area, and root-mean-square error (RMSE) of sea-surface height.
Main Results:
- The proposed XTI-SAR approach successfully detected simulated rogue waves with a spatial resolution of 3 m × 3 m.
- Height accuracy of decimeters was achieved in detecting rogue wave peaks.
- Analysis identified optimal operational parameters, including look angle, baseline, and mean-filter size, for effective rogue wave detection.
Conclusions:
- The XTI-SAR imaging approach offers a viable solution for the prompt and wide-area detection of elusive rogue waves.
- This method overcomes the limitations of conventional SAR by enabling accurate real-time sea surface height retrieval.
- The validated XTI-SAR technique significantly enhances maritime safety by providing crucial early warnings for rogue wave events.
