PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
July 2018
419
BOOK
REVIEW
Radar Imaging for Maritime Observation
Edited by Fabrizio Berizzi, Marco Martorella and
Elisa Giusti.
CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL. 2016. xxxv and 347pp., Figures,
Tables, Images & Photos. Hardcover. $199.95. ISBN
978-1-4665-8081-7.
Reviewed by
Dr. Ralph L. Fiedler, Image Science and
Applications Branch Head, Naval Research Laboratory,
Washington, DC.
Radar Imaging for Maritime Observation
offers an overview
of the fundamentals to high-resolution radar image processing
with special emphasis on the varied forms of Inverse Synthetic
Aperture Radar (ISAR) and their application to maritime
problems. This book is best suited to an audience of technologists
interested in exploring active remote sensing approaches to
maritime analysis beginning with statistical treatments for ship
and oil spill detection to applications of ISAR, bistatic ISAR and
3D InSAR for vessel surveillance and imaging.
Radar imaging systems are inherently sensitive to relative
changes in motion and variable aspect between the sensor,
the environment and man-related content occurring during
the collection period. Using these systems within the context
of the maritime domain, where all is in motion, is a complex
but achievable task. This book addresses this challenge well,
principally from an ISAR perspective.
The book is organized as a collection of chapters with mixed
authorship drawn mostly from the list of editors. Overall, the
editors have arranged the content into two parts beginning
with the theoretical underpinnings necessary to appreciate
the applications that follow.
Part I, chapters 1-6, cover SAR and ISAR image formation
processing. Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of radar
imaging principles emphasizing aspects for achieving high
resolution, followed by an introduction to the contrasting
concepts distinguishing SAR from ISAR imaging. Chapter 2
provides a brief overview of the varied SAR image formation
schemes followed by a description of the ISAR image processing
chain in Chapter 3. More in-depth treatments are offered for
bistatic ISAR in Chapter 4, passive ISAR in Chapter 5, and
3D interferometric ISAR in Chapter 6.
Part II, chapters 7-11, cover the applications portion of the
book and introduces examples of SAR imagery from airborne
and spaceborne SAR systems. Chapter 7 provides an approach
to ship detection using wavelets, statistical treatments, and
the CLEAN algorithm. Chapter 8 details statistical treatments
for image segmentation tailored to oil spill detection. Chapter
9 focuses on applying ISAR techniques to SAR imagery to
improve ship rendering by adaptively compensating for ship
motion. Chapter 10 highlights passive bistatic ISAR for harbor
surveillance. Chapter 11 demonstrates a 3D interferometric
ISAR approach to ship traffic monitoring by characterizing
the vertical distribution of the upright sequence in support of
ship classification.
Especially interesting are the chapters on bistatic and
passive ISAR, and their associated applications. Although,
many of the SAR images in Chapters 7 and beyond were
difficult to appreciate due to their large scale and relatively
small signatures there contained.
While the book is expressed as intended for beginner
and expert alike, the scope would likely need to expand to
unwieldy proportions to provide sufficient background on the
essential underpinnings of SAR maritime phenomenology for
those not yet fluent in the complex degrees of freedom offered
by the maritime domain. Take for example, the influences of
ship motion on signature response, e.g., twisting distortions,
dilations and contractions, equivalency of range acceleration
with cross range speed on quadratic and worse phase related
smearing, differences in sensitivity to motion effects by
airborne and spaceborne SAR systems due differences in
theta-dot (angular rate of the platform as seen from the scene
center), and so on. Even the example of the EMISAR Storebaelt
scene with the direct, double and triple bounce signatures from
the suspension bridge cables highlights multipath and layover
complexity not typically enjoyed in over ground imagery.
Characterizing these various dependencies of signature
response and contrasting benefits of processing strategies,
important for a beginner’s understanding, is a task outside the
scope of this book.
Overall, the authors have embraced a very broad agenda
spanning both theoretical and applied aspects of ISAR imaging
and analysis within a maritime context. The book is well written
and fills a void for experts looking to gain insight on the latest
ISAR related techniques and examples of statistical treatments
for maritime observation and analysis. Job well done.
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
Vol. 84, No. 7, July 2018, pp. 419–419.
0099-1112/18/419–419
© 2018 American Society for Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing
doi: 10.14358/PERS.84.7.419
