Random walk based characterisation of radar backscatter from the sea surface

First- and second-order statistics of the signal backscattered from the sea surface are investigated from both theoretical and experimental points of view. The authors present a detailed theory about the physical processes which regulate the scattering inside the radar cell and derive some relationships between random walks and compound-Gaussian processes. A validation of the model is presented by comparing the second-order theoretical and empirical characteristic functions. For this purpose, the authors also propose an algorithm for estimating the parameters of the second-order probability density function. Results illustrate that, for high resolution radar devices, the proposed model provides good agreement with the statistics of the received signal, at least when the first-order model is in force.