A Time-Series of SAR Measurements to Analyze C-Band Backscattering of Offshore Wind Farms

This study analyses the C-band multi-polarization backscattering properties of offshore wind farms. The data set includes a large time series of satellite synthetic aperture radar imagery collected by the European Space Agency Copernicus mission Sentinel-1. As a test site, the Robin Rigg offshore wind farm located in the Solway Firth, (UK) is selected. The aim of this study is to extract the multi-polarisation normalized radar cross section and reflection symmetry information over selected wind turbines and a reference target-free sea surface area to analyze the corresponding backscattering features over time. Preliminary results suggest that the detectability of wind turbines is strictly related to the considered multipolarization parameters, for which co-polarized backscattering dominates over the cross-polarized one. In addition, wind turbines are characterized by a correlation between co- and cross-polarized channels larger than the surrounding sea surface, which satisfies the reflection symmetry property.