Author(s): E. O. Lewis; B. W. Currie
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Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: Ships navigating in ice-covered waters are severely handicapped by the poor quality of conventional marine radar display devices and by a limited capability to manipulate the received radar data to more effectively utilize its information content. The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans and McMaster University have, for a period of several years, been carrying out a series of experiments and investigations to improve the radar's ability to detect and classify ice types and features. A major part of these experiments has been associated with investigating the optimum radar parameters (frequency, polarization, pulse width, etc. ) to employ in a specially-designed ice radar. The results of this work are described in an accompanying paper (Lewis and Currie, 1984). Recent studies have also been directed at maximizing the information available from conventional marine radar systems. This paper describes investigations of image enhancement techniques applicable to real-time enhancement of radar signal returns from ice targets. A radar image recorded during an experimental program is enhanced by a number of reasonably simple mathematical processes. The results of these operations are compared against the original unprocessed image, and show significant increase in the information made apparent to the operator. Based on the result of these comparisons, recommendations are made on the most suitable complement of techniques to be employed in a real-time display. issues involved with scan conversion from R0 to XY coordinates are discussed. The paper concludes by describing how these enhancement techniques could be implemented in hardware to achieve continuous real-time processed images. Hardware costs of this implementation are also discussed.
Year: 1984