Processor for the detection of oil spills

• Grant number: 03/13180-5
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: March 01, 2005
• End date: October 31, 2009
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Electrical Engineering - Electrical, Magnetic and Electronic Measurements, Instrumentation
• Principal Investigator: Joao Roberto Moreira Neto
• Grantee: Joao Roberto Moreira Neto
• Company: Bradar Indústria S/A

Abstract

Orbisat developed Brazil’s first Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, OrbiSAR-I, which operates on two different bands. Band X produces images of the surface and Band P has the capability of producing images of terrain under dense vegetation (forested areas). The processor for the detection of oil spills, proposed in this project, will be an OrbiSAR-I implementation. At present this radar records data obtained on hard disks and only at the end of the flight is it copied onto equipment that will process it. The project proposed here basically entails enabling OrbiSAR-I Radar to process raw data in real time, that’s to say, as the data is gathered it could begin to be processed instantaneously during the flight. This represents an enormous technological innovation, given that commercial sensors capable of producing high resolution SAR images (in the order of 10 meters) in real time and at low cost do not exist. To do this, the hardware will need to be adapted by the replacement of two processing boards with other more modern boards in the Flight Computer Controller (FCC) unit; and the construction of the antenna with new parameters already defined, to be carried out by Orbisat in partnership with the State University of Campinas (Unicamp). The software will require the development of a real time processing algorithm. (AU)