RADARSAT-2 new modes

RADARSAT-2 has provided new and better opportunities for spaceborne monitoring of vessel traffic and fishing activities because of better flexibility in choice of resolution, polarisation and look direction. Due to user demand, five new modes were installed on the satellite in 2011. The new modes give the possibility to order images with better resolution and quad-polarisation (for some of the modes). This may be better for some scenarios in operational ship detection due to the increased swath width and coverage area for the new modes. Until the new modes on RADARSAT-2 were installed, high resolution and quad-polarisation images only covered small areas. For ship detection these images have mainly been used for research purposes, harbor areas or over a known small area of interest. The report presents an overview of RADARSAT-2’s original and new modes. Original and new swath widths are compared and image examples are shown. In addition ship length formulas are used to calculate theoretical nominal minimum detectable ship sizes for different combinations of modes, incidence angles, wind speeds and radar resolutions.