Research on retrieval algorithms of ocean surface wind direction from airborne SAR imagery

Wind direction can be retrieved from SAR imagery because the wind streaks are very well aligned with it. But in airborne SAR imagery, the wave streaks and the wind cut streaks are mixed, which makes the wind retrieval more difficult. To solve this problem, the local-gradient algorithm and the Mexican-hat wavelet algorithm given in this paper were used to retrieve wind directions from airborne SAR imagery. The research was carried out by retrieving with two groups of airborne SAR sounding data. The results show that the local-gradient algorithm and the Mexican-hat wavelet algorithm can be used to retrieve wind direction from airborne SAR imagery, and the latter´s retrieval accuracy was better than the former´s.