Simulation of SAR images of the ocean from geophysical and statistical models

A method for simulating the velocity bunching effect on a SAR image using the ERS-1 SAR parameters is described. Acknowledging that the destructive contribution of this phenomenon is represented by random sub-resolution scale surface motions in the cross-range direction, the characteristic function of the displacement field is used to calculate the SAR spectrum. Hence, combining the SAR spectrum that gives the squared amplitude of the SAR image Fourier transform and the phases of the Fourier transform of one random displacement simulation, a SAR image is then created by inverse Fourier transform. The authors´ simulation stresses that the coherence between facets is highly increased in the along track direction leading to a loss of azimuthal resolution. The non-Gaussian SAR image statistics is not yet included in this model, and will be done later