Remote Sensing of the Polar Ice Zones with HF Radar

Radars operating in the HF band are widely used for over-the-horizon remote sensing of ocean surface conditions, ionospheric studies and the monitoring of ship and aircraft traffic. Several hundreds of such radars are in operation, yet only a handful of experiments have been conducted to assess the prospect of utilizing this technology for the remote sensing of sea ice. Even then, the measurements carried out have addressed only the most basic questions: is there ice present, and can we measure its drift? Recently the theory that describes HF scattering from the dynamic sea surface was extended to handle situations where an ice cover is present. With this new tool, it becomes feasible to interpret the corresponding radar echoes in terms of the structural, mechanical, and electrical properties of the ice field. In this paper we look briefly at ice sensing from space-borne sensors before showing how the persistent and synoptic wide area surveillance capabilities of HF radar offer an alternative. The dispersion relations of different forms of sea ice are examined and used in a modified implementation of the electromagnetic scattering theory employed in HF radar oceanography to compute the corresponding radar signatures. Previous and present-day HF radar deployments at high latitudes are reviewed, noting the physical and technical challenges that confront the implementation of an operational HF radar in its ice monitoring capability.

Long-Term Displacement Monitoring of Slow Earthflows by Inclinometers and GPS, and Wide Area Surveillance by COSMO-SkyMed Data

With reference to two slow earthflows in structurally complex clayey formations of the Italian southern Apennines, this paper shows the results of a long-term displacement monitoring using integrated systems of inclinometers and GPS, and their comparison with PSInSAR data. A fixed-in-place and traversal inclinometer system, first installed in 2004, recorded both the shear displacements along the slip bands, and the internal deformations of the landslide masses. A GPS network of permanent stations and benchmarks, installed in 2006–2007 in 23 strategic points of the slope, allowed for the temporal continuity of displacement monitoring. The two long series of data allowed to evaluate the factor scaling of the PSInSAR COSMO-SkyMed data, although the component of the displacement vector along the line of sight (LOS) was small. PSInSAR data allowed for the monitoring extension to houses and rigid structures that acted as reflectors. The joint data analysis allowed for the comprehension of the main features of the landslides’ kinematics.

Efficient Key Frame Selection Approach for Object Detection in Wide Area Surveillance Applications

This paper presents an efficient preprocessing algorithm for object detection in wide area surveillance video analysis. The proposed key-frame selection method utilizes the pixel intensity differences among subsequent frames to automatically select only the frames that contain the desired contextual information and discard the rest of the insignificant frames. For improving effectiveness and efficiency, a batch updating based on a modular representation strategy is also incorporated. Experimental results show that the proposed key frame selection technique has a significant positive performance impact on wide area surveillance applications such as automatic object detection and recognition in aerial imagery.