Obtaining a ship’s speed and direction from its Kelvin wake spectrum using stochastic matched filtering

The Kelvin wake of a ship is directly linked to the ship´s speed, heading and hull shape. This wake can be visible in high resolution synthetic aperture radar images or optical images. Whenever it is possible, analyzing it can provide elements to identify the ship and track its course. We propose a strategy based on the generalized Radon Transform and the Stochastic Matched Filtering where the locus of the wake signature in the 2D spectrum of the image is to be detected.