Remote sensing of ocean surface wind direction with shipborne high frequency surface wave radar

Land-based high frequency surface wave radar (HFSWR) has been successfully employed for early warning and ocean remote sensing. However, there remain potential gaps for shipborne HFSWR in the application of ocean remote sensing. In this paper, the feasibility of extracting wind direction is studied based on the first-order ocean surface cross section in shipborne HFSWR. According to the spreading mechanism of the Bragg lines, a method of extracting wind direction without ambiguity is proposed. Furthermore, by use of a single receiving sensor rather than the receiving array, wind direction of the large sea area covered by radar can be obtained. Together with the simulation results, analyses of the concerning issues in an actual application verify the potential of the method proposed. Compared with the methods based on a huge receiving array in land-based HFSWR, it can provide higher transverse resolution and be more easily realized with less system cost.