Sea State Retrieval from Sentinel-1 Imagery as Support of Maritime Situation Awareness

From Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery various types of maritime information are extractable, including surface winds, waves, oil slicks, waterline changes, changes of seabed morphology in shallow waters, wakes of ships, etc. The algorithms recently developed for this purpose are integrated into a prototype processor for Sentinel-1 (S-1) imagery. The DLR Ground Station Neustrelitz applies this prototype as part of a near real-time demonstrator service for support of Maritime Situation Awareness. The presented scientific service involves daily provision of surface wind and sea state parameters estimated fully automatic from S-1 Interferometric Wide Swath (IW) images for North and Baltic Sea.