Sea Surface Characterization Using Dual Polarized GNSS Reception System

GNSS signal reception using Dual Circular Polarized method has been proposed to simultaneously record direct and reflected signals from the sea surface. Dual circular polarized reception (DCPR) system gives the opportunity to exploit the polarization change of the incident signal after reflection. This paper reports received signal characteristics of various GPS satellites for bare sea conditions. The received signals from various satellites are compared and are analyzed statistically to characterize the sea-state. The reflected left-hand circular polarized (LHCP) signal is used to analyze the scattering characteristics of sea surface. The statistics of LHCP signal give strong correlation with the wind speed over the sea and can be used to characterize the sea-state.