Analysis of Moving Ship Detection Performance of an Airborne Passive Interferometric Microwave Sensor (PIMS)

Passive interferometric microwave sensors (PIMSs) can be used in all-day, low-visibility conditions, and high clutters. PIMSs have been proposed for target detection. The detection probability function is established to quantitatively assess the stationary ship detection performance, which is not suitable for moving ships, especially at low spatial resolutions. In this article, the moving ship detection performance of an airborne PIMS is analyzed and discussed in detail for the first time, especially at low spatial resolutions. The detection probability function is established to analyze the impact of the ship wakes on the moving ship detection performance. An end-to-end brightness temperature (TB) simulator is established to analyze the TB characteristics of moving ships and assess the impact of the ship wakes on the moving ship detection performance. Numerical simulations are performed to quantitatively assess the impact of the ship wakes on the moving ship detection performance in terms of materials, spatial resolutions, and ship speeds. Numerical results have demonstrated that ship wakes have an important impact on the moving ship detection performance of an airborne PIMS. Ship wakes reduce the detection performance at low spatial resolutions; the faster the ship speeds, the lower the ship detection probability. On the contrary, ship wakes improve the moving high-microwave-emissivity ship detection performance at low spatial resolutions; the faster the ship speeds, the higher the ship detection probability. Numerical results agree well with the theoretical analysis, as expected. As a conclusion, the airborne PIMSs can be carefully designed based on the theoretical analysis of this article to obtain the highest detection performance for moving ships on the sea.