Hybrid Wave Height Estimation from First- and Second-Order Doppler Spectral Peaks of Compact High Frequency Radar

To improve the capability of the compact high frequency (HF) radar in sea surface wave height measurement, three different methods have been investigated during the past years by exploiting either the first-order or the second-order Doppler spectral peaks. Compared with the classical integral inversion framework, the new methods provide a promising potential in wave mapping. However, their limitations in measurable distance and wave height range are still existed. In this paper, through analyzing the difference of the previous three methods, a new hybrid method is proposed by jointly estimating wave height from the first- and second-order Doppler spectral peaks based on the rough sea state level classification. The first- and second-order Doppler spectral peaks are respectively exploited to estimate wave heights of low- and high-waves, which are then fused to obtain the final wave height results. Preliminary experimental results are given to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.