A NEW DATASET OF MULTI-MISSION/MULTI-FREQUENCY SAR DATA FOR MARITIME MONITORING: FIRST RESULTS AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This paper evaluates the capabilities offered by the synergic exploitation of multi-frequency and multimission Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images for the enhancement of Maritime Situational Awareness (MSA). Nowadays, SAR-based ship detection methodologies have proven their effectiveness in overpassing current limitations of existing monitoring systems based on Automatic Identification System (AIS). However, SAR potential for maritime surveillance is still underutilized, e.g., the fusion among data gathered by different SAR missions. A new database of multi-mission/multi-frequency SAR data has been recently developed by the authors in the framework of the COAST project, funded by the Italian Space Agency. The dataset includes COSMO-SkyMed, SAOCOM, and Sentinel-1 images collected over the same areas with less than 15 minutes time lag between consecutive acquisitions. The preliminary analysis of the data set has been just completed revealing the value of multi-mission/multi-frequency SAR data for MSA.