The study on extracting of vessels information from the SAR satellite data

The paper introduces satellite remote sensing technology used into marine traffic investigation, to detect and analyze actual marine traffic situation on a large scale. The paper introduces characteristics of SAR image and the procedure for extracting information of vessels based on the SAR Remote Sensing image. Vessel Detection Technology is studied based on multi-source space borne SAR data, after analyzing the characteristics of various types of vessels detection algorithm and combining with the needs of marine vessel detection and traffic investigation. According to the characteristics of SAR images, four methods of extracting ship information have been developed, including gravitational field, CFAR detection, PNN and adaptive algorithm. Taking the ERS-2 images as an example, the reliability and limitations of vessel information extracting from the satellite image is discussed. The study shows that satellite remote sensing provides a new and feasible method for marine vessel traffic investigation. At present, the technology has been developed and some tests have been carried out. However, some limitations in the system need further study, especially the impact of the sea state.