Estimation of Ocean Current Velocity near Incheon using Radarsat-1 SAR and HF-radar Data

This paper presents the results of the ocean surface current velocity estimation using 6 Radarsat-1 SAR images acquired in west coastal area near Incheon. We extracted the surface velocity from SAR images based on the Doppler shift approach in which the azimuth frequency shift is related to the motion of surface target in the radar direction. The Doppler shift was measured by the difference between the Doppler centroid estimated in the range-compressed, azimuth-frequency domain and the nominal Doppler centroid used during the SAR focusing process. The extracted SAR current velocities were statistically compared with the current velocities from the high frequency (HF) radar in terms of averages, standard deviations, and root mean square errors. The problem of the unreliable nominal Doppler centroid for the estimation of the SAR current velocity was corrected by subtracting the difference of averages between SAR and HF-radar current velocities from the SAR current velocity. The corrected SAR current velocity inherits the average of HF-radar data while maintaining high-resolution nature of the original SAR data.