GNSS-R: a useful tool for sea target detection in near real-time

Abstract

This paper investigates a novel application of Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry (GNSS-R) in the fields of maritime surveillance and safety, and climate change analysis, namely sea target detection in near real-time. Potentialities of the recent GNSS-R technology in the detection of targets over the sea (large ships, sea ice sheets) in near real-time are explored by: 1) computing the revisit time achieved with constellations of GNSS-R satellites; 2) deriving, implementing and testing a sea target detection algorithm. The global average revisit time is evaluated by mission simulation in two realistic scenarios and is shown as a function of the number of parallel receiver channels and the number of GNSS-R satellites in orbit. The sea target detection algorithm consists of four steps - pre-processing, pre-screening, selection, and geolocation - and is tested using actual UK TechDemoSat-1 data.