Evaluation of a Hf-radar Ship Detection Algorithm by Comparison to Ais and Sar Data

A ship detection and tracking algorithm for HF-radar is evaluated by comparison to Automatic Identification System (AIS) and satellite borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data to provide an estimate of the detection and false alarm rate performance in a real operational scenario. This paper presents results from the HF-radar experiment that is ongoing since May 2009 and operates two HF-radar systems operating at 12.5 MHz in the Ligurian Sea. Preliminary results show the effectiveness of the HF-radar as a long range (~140 km) and continuous time coverage surveillance asset, despite its low spatial resolution. The performance of the HF-radar ship detection and tracking algorithms are evaluated by comparison to AIS and SAR. In addition the performance of the algorithms will be investigated with respect to environmental parameters such as wind, waves and currents, resulting from the HF-radar system as well as numerical model results and in situ data.