The Marine Debris and Small Object Mapping (DSOM) Radar System)

The DSOM system realized in a Phase II effort will provide a modular, compact and reconfigurable system with the ability to provide unique and new information about the scene of interest (e.g. temporal and height information) when compared with traditional SAR sensors. When compared with other imaging technologies, DSOM has the important advantages of being operable through cloud cover and at night. In Phase I, RSS explored the marine debris, and marine object detection applications space. In doing so, we have arrived at a series of radar imaging sensor solutions that are targeted and customized to the individual observational and detection requirements. The primary application considered was marine debris, but we extended our consideration to include ice-berg/bergy-bits detection and characterization, seaice freeboard mapping, marine mammal detection, vessel detection, search and rescue, rapidresponse and fisheries support. In particular, we propose to employ various sampling and measurement configurations at Ka-band to exploit scattering properties of the targets as distinct from the ambient scene. Ka-band was chosen because; 1) It has a high temporal correlation contrast between water and objects; 2) High precision interferometry (ATI, XTI, etc.) can be achieved with relatively small antenna separations; and 3) This technology is relatively mature. A novel system architecture was devised that will enable XTI/ATI, MSAR and DBF custom configuration of the DSOM for land, sea and airborne platforms. In the long-term, upon the advent of high-altitude long-endurance platforms, the DSOM has the potential to expand our spatio-temporal observational capabilities for marine debris and objects by orders of magnitude.