Angelliaume Sébastien, Ceamanos Xavier, Viallefont-Robinet Françoise, Baqué Rémi, Déliot Philippe, Miegebielle Véronique
Electromagnetism and Radar Department, ONERA, BA 701, 13661 Salon Air, France.
Optics and Associated Techniques Department, ONERA, 2 avenue Edouard Belin, 31055 Toulouse, France.
Sensors (Basel). 2017 Aug 2;17(8):1772. doi: 10.3390/s17081772.
Remote sensing techniques are commonly used by Oil and Gas companies to monitor hydrocarbon on the ocean surface. The interest lies not only in exploration but also in the monitoring of the maritime environment. Occurrence of natural seeps on the sea surface is a key indicator of the presence of mature source rock in the subsurface. These natural seeps, as well as the oil slicks, are commonly detected using radar sensors but the addition of optical imagery can deliver extra information such as thickness and composition of the detected oil, which is critical for both exploration purposes and efficient cleanup operations. Today, state-of-the-art approaches combine multiple data collected by optical and radar sensors embedded on-board different airborne and spaceborne platforms, to ensure wide spatial coverage and high frequency revisit time. Multi-wavelength imaging system may create a breakthrough in remote sensing applications, but it requires adapted processing techniques that need to be developed. To explore performances offered by multi-wavelength radar and optical sensors for oil slick monitoring, remote sensing data have been collected by SETHI (Système Expérimental de Télédection Hyperfréquence Imageur), the airborne system developed by ONERA (the French Aerospace Lab), during an oil spill cleanup exercise carried out in 2015 in the North Sea, Europe. The uniqueness of this dataset lies in its high spatial resolution, low noise level and quasi-simultaneous acquisitions of different part of the EM spectrum. Specific processing techniques have been developed to extract meaningful information associated with oil-covered sea surface. Analysis of this unique and rich dataset demonstrates that remote sensing imagery, collected in both optical and microwave domains, allows estimating slick surface properties such as the age of the emulsion released at sea, the spatial abundance of oil and the relative concentration of hydrocarbons remaining on the sea surface.
石油和天然气公司通常使用遥感技术来监测海洋表面的碳氢化合物。其兴趣不仅在于勘探，还在于对海洋环境的监测。海面出现天然渗漏是地下存在成熟源岩的关键指标。这些天然渗漏以及浮油通常使用雷达传感器进行检测，但添加光学图像可以提供额外信息，例如检测到的油的厚度和成分，这对于勘探目的和高效清理作业都至关重要。如今，先进的方法结合了由嵌入不同机载和星载平台上的光学和雷达传感器收集的多个数据，以确保广泛的空间覆盖和高频率重访时间。多波长成像系统可能会在遥感应用中带来突破，但它需要开发适配的处理技术。为了探索多波长雷达和光学传感器在监测浮油方面的性能，在2015年于欧洲北海进行的一次溢油清理演习期间，由法国国家航空航天研究院（ONERA）开发的机载系统SETHI（超高频成像遥感系统）收集了遥感数据。该数据集的独特之处在于其高空间分辨率、低噪声水平以及对电磁频谱不同部分的准同步采集。已经开发了特定的处理技术来提取与油覆盖海面相关的有意义信息。对这个独特而丰富的数据集的分析表明，在光学和微波领域收集的遥感图像能够估计浮油表面特性，例如在海上释放的乳化物的年龄、油的空间丰度以及海面剩余碳氢化合物的相对浓度。
