Impact of ScanSAR images´ radiometric calibration on vessels and identification

Image quality and radiometric calibration of several RADARSAT ScanSAR processors has been compared to assess impact of different processors on the vessel cross section and on the background, respect to the automatic detection as well. Several ocean scenes processed by four different ScanSAR processors have been analysed and some variability in image quality and radiometric calibration have been found. In this study cross sections of the same targets, present in the selected images and identified thanks to the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data, have been analysed to find out the differences among them and where it is possible to link these differences to some specific parameters.