An ice-motion tracking system at the Alaska SAR facility

Author

Kwok, Ronald ; Curlander, John C. ; Mcconnell, Ross ; Pang, Shirley S.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

15

Issue

1

fYear

1990

fDate

1/1/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

44

Lastpage

54

Abstract

An operational system for extracting ice-motion information from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery is being developed as part of the Alaska SAR Facility. This geophysical processing system (GPS) will derive ice-motion information by automated analysis of image sequences acquired by radars on the European ERS-1, Japanese ERS-1, and Canadian RADARSAT remote sensing satellites. The algorithm consists of a novel combination of feature-based and area-based techniques for the tracking of ice floes that undergo translation and rotation between imaging passes. The system performs automatic selection of the image pairs for input to the matching routines using an ice-motion estimator. It is designed to have a daily throughput of ten image pairs. A description is given of the GPS system, including an overview of the ice-motion-tracking algorithm, the system architecture, and the ice-motion products that will be available for distribution to geophysical data users

Keywords

computerised signal processing; geophysics computing; oceanographic techniques; radar applications; radar measurement; remote sensing; sea ice; tracking systems; Alaska SAR facility; Canadian RADARSAT; European ERS-1; Japanese ERS-1; algorithm; area-based techniques; automated analysis; automatic selection; computerised signal processing; feature based technique; geophysical processing system; ice floes; ice-motion; ice-motion estimator; ice-motion tracking; image pairs; image sequences; matching routines; remote sensing satellites; rotation; synthetic aperture radar; tracking; translation; Data mining; Global Positioning System; Image analysis; Image sequence analysis; Image sequences; Information analysis; Radar imaging; Radar remote sensing; Radar tracking; Synthetic aperture radar;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0364-9059

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/48.46835

Filename

46835