Texture-Analysis-Incorporated Wind Parameters Extraction from Rain-Contaminated X-Band Nautical Radar Images

In this paper, a method for extracting wind parameters from rain-contaminated X-band nautical radar images is presented. The texture of the radar image is first generated based on spatial variability analysis. Through this process, the rain clutter in an image can be removed while the wave echoes are retained. The number of rain-contaminated pixels in each azimuthal direction of the texture is estimated, and this is used to determine the azimuthal directions in which the rain-contamination is negligible. Then, the original image data in these directions are selected for wind direction and speed retrieval using the modified intensity-level-selection-based wind algorithm. The proposed method is applied to shipborne radar data collected from the east Coast of Canada. The comparison of the radar results with anemometer data shows that the standard deviations of wind direction and speed using the rain mitigation technique can be reduced by about 14.5 degrees and 1.3 m/s, respectively.