Ice Hazard Radar

Ships transiting polar regions would benefit from a marine ice navigation radar that could help them differentiate between dangerous multi-year ice and thick first-year ice. Conventional marine radars are designed for target detection and avoidance. Enhanced marine radars provide a higher definition image of the ice that the vessel is transiting through and may help the user to identify certain ice features, but they cannot distinguish first year ice from old ice. This paper presents one approach for the automated identification of sea ice types by a marine radar using cross-polarization technology.