A tracking algorithm for GNSS reflected signals on sea surface

The observation of the ocean surface using electromagnetic sources of opportunity (GNSS signals for instance) has been a green research topic for several years. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) presents a powerful and useful technology for remote sensing, ocean surface monitoring and oceanography. Many experiments have been conducted to show the efficiency of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in applications such as ocean surface altimetry, wave height, surface current measurements, and current direction estimation [1]. Considering the GPS link as a passive sensor for ocean monitoring, we study in this paper the possibility of tracking GPS signal reflection footprints on the sea surface to improve the acquisition and the extraction of this signal. As an analogy to the classical problem of moving targets Radar tracking, we develop a tracking algorithm based on Kalman filtering.