Original Article

Proc IMechE Part M:

J Engineering for the Maritime Environment
2021, Vol. 235(2) 356–371
Short-time deterministic prediction of Ó IMechE 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
individual waves based on space-time sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1475090220987401

X-band Marine radar measurements journals.sagepub.com/home/pim

Victoria Zinchenko1 , Leonid Vasilyev1, Svein Olav Halstensen1 and

Yuming Liu2

Abstract
We demonstrate and verify, by the use of both synthetic and real wave data, a newly developed capability of short-time
phase-resolved wave prediction based on incoherent X-band marine radar measurements. An inversion algorithm is
developed to convert X-band radar sea surface measurements into the phase-resolved wave field and the associated
wave spectrum based on the linear gravity wave theory. The wave components obtained from the reconstruction are
then used to initialize the wave propagation model that is used to provide a short-time deterministic forecast of wave
field evolution downstream. Both wave spectrum and spatial-temporal wave elevation evolution obtained based on the
X-band measurements are compared with the independent point wave measurements by Miros RangeFinder. The agree-
ments between them are reasonably well, which has a significant implication on practical applications of short-time deter-
ministic wave prediction in optimal marine operations.

Keywords
X-band marine radar, phase-resolved wave reconstruction, irregular waves, wave predictability, wave propagation, three-
dimensional discrete Fourier transform

Date received: 7 August 2020; accepted: 10 November 2020

Introduction also been developed to predict the spatial-temporal

With the fast advancement in understanding and mod-
eling of ocean wave dynamics as well as the availability
of innovative sensing technologies, the wave prediction
capability has been largely improved in recent years.
This has helped significantly reduce the costs, increase
the safety and thus enhance the operation envelop of a
wide range of challenging marine operations under
severe sea conditions.
Statistical methods have played a vital role in model-
ing and predicting the sea state conditions.1 They pro-
vide the forecast of statistical parameters of ocean
environments useful in relatively long-term planning of
offshore activities and marine transportation. Without
the phase information, however, the statistical methods
are unable to predict the specific times and/or spatial
locations on the occurrence of any individual extreme
events, such as rogue waves and ship capsizing. In prac-
tical applications, the marine operations are indeed lim-
ited by these extreme events that may cause structure
damages and/or marine safety issues. To complement
the statistical approaches, phase-resolved methods have
evolution of detailed sea surface elevation maps. With
phase-resolved modeling, one could achieve a short-
time deterministic forecast of individual large-
amplitude waves and corresponding vessel motions.
Such forecasted phase-resolved information could be
used to improve maneuverability and active control of
ship motion and operations, provide operational gui-
dance for improved safety and performance, increase
operational envelop and survivability in severe seas
(e.g. lifting operations, helicopter landing, and landing
of subsea modules into platform installation),2 and
optimize ship deployment and multi-vessel cooperation
1
Department of Coastal and Ocean Systems, NORCE Norwegian
Research Centre, Haugesund, Norway
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Corresponding author:
Victoria Zinchenko, Department of Coastal and Ocean Systems, NORCE
Norwegian Research Centre, Sørhauggata 128, Haugesund 5527, Norway.
Email: vizi@norceresearch.no
Zinchenko et al.
(e.g. transporting cargoes between ships or mobile
platforms).
A key challenge in the deterministic prediction of
irregular seas is to obtain reliable and accurate phase-
resolved wave field measurements that can be used to
initialize the phase-resolved wave model. In addition to
in situ wave buoys that measure wave motions at iso-
lated discrete locations, remote-sensing technologies
such as X-band marine radars have been employed to
sense surface waves in large continuous areas. From the
sea clutter on incoherent X-band marine radar images,
one can deduce the detailed sea surface maps and grav-
ity wave kinematics by the three-dimensional (two
dimensions in space and one dimension in time) Fourier
analysis (Young et al.3). Over the past two decades,
much effort has been devoted to correlating the radar
return signals with the surface wave variables. Despite
the challenge in calibration of the wave amplitude
response of the radar, significant advances have been
achieved in the use of incoherent X-band marine radars
to recover surface wave information (Nieto Borge
et al.,4 Blondel-Couprie and Naaijen,5 Naaijen and
Blondel-Couprie6). Various schemes have been devel-
oped to improve the accuracy of the inversion schemes
for the common marine radar (e.g. Qi et al.7), including
the use of supplementary buoy measurements and
coherent (Doppler) radars (e.g. Connell et al.8). Since
coherent radars provide the Doppler shift as well as the
backscatter strength of the scatters and may operate at
different polarizations, they offer more information to
be included in any wave inversion scheme.
Once the phase-resolved wave propagation model is
initiated with the sensed discrete-point and/or whole-
area wave data, the model can provide a phase-resolved
(i.e. deterministic) prediction of spatial-temporal wave-
field evolution in principle. A remained practical issue
is to determine the minimum requisite wave data for
the phase-resolved wave prediction at the desired loca-
tion for a desired duration (e.g. to obtain a short-time
deterministic forecast of waves around a vessel9 allow-
ing for maneuvering and active control of the vessel).
The associated theoretical problem is to find the
spatial-temporal domain inside which the phase-
resolved irregular wave motion can be accurately pre-
dicted for the given wave data. Simanesew2 and
Simanesew et al.10 has studied the spatial-temporal
dependence of the prediction error as a basis to investi-
gate the key parameters bounding the prediction region
using both linear and nonlinear wave models for long
and short-crested waves. They found that spreading of
wave directionality significantly affects the predictabil-
ity of short-crested seas. Based on the linear wave the-
ory, Qi et al.11 have developed a predictable zone
theory on the determination of the predictable spatial-
temporal zone for both long- and short-crested seas,
inside which the phase-resolved wave motion can be
reliably predicted, for any specified points and/or
whole-area wave data. They theoretically showed that
it is the group speed rather than the phase speed of
357
waves which controls the prediction region for given
wave data, as found in earlier studies of Naaijen et al.12
and Simanesew et al.10 They illustrated the predictable
regions associated with various types of wave data
including those by stationary and/or moving probes
and from whole-area radar measurements.
Despite the rapid advances in wave sensing technol-
ogies and comprehensive developments of advanced
algorithms for radar signal inversion, data assimilation
and wave modeling, a number of basic and technical
challenging issues remain to be resolved in order to
achieve the useful capability of short-time deterministic
wave prediction under realistic conditions. These
include the consistency, fidelity and robustness of
phase-resolved wave reconstruction from radar return
signals, calibration of wave amplitudes from radar
measurements, consideration of nonlinear wave effects
in wave reconstruction and propagation modeling, and
treatment of uncertainties and noises in measurements
and modeling. Because of these, the performance of the
deterministic wave prediction capability has not been
well tested and assessed, in particular, under realistic
ocean environments. Understanding the behavior and
parametric dependence of the consistency and accuracy
of the short-time deterministic wave prediction capabil-
ity is of crucial importance for practical applications.
In this paper, we use both synthetic and real wave-
field data to demonstrate and validate the effectiveness
of an integrated wave reconstruction and prediction
capability for short-time deterministic forecast of irre-
gular waves. Incoherent X-band marine radar measure-
ments of the sea surface are used to initialize the wave
propagation model that is based on the linear wave the-
ory. The focus is on the consistency and fidelity of the
predicted phase-resolved wave motion near the ship
based on the ship-mounted X-band marine radar mea-
surements of upstream waves. Independent point wave
measurements near the ship are used to quantify the
accuracy of the deterministic wave forecast from the X-
band radar measurements. In Section 2, the inversion
algorithm for the reconstruction of phase-resolved
wave field from incoherent X-band radar return signals
is briefly outlined. The wave propagation model and
the predictable zone theory are also summarized. The
quantitative verifications of the forecasted phase-
resolved wave elevations and the discussions of the
results for synthetic and realistic wave data are
described in detail in Sections 3 and 4, respectively. The
conclusions are drawn in Section 5.
Methodology of phase-resolved wave
reconstruction and forecast
The short-time deterministic prediction of irregular
waves based on the X-band radar wave measurements
consists of two main procedures: (I) reconstructing the
phase-resolved wave field from the radar return signals;
and (II) assimilating the reconstructed wave data into
358
Figure 1. Main procedures in the reconstruction and forecast of sea surface elevation map and wave spectrum from the ship-
mounted X-band marine radar measurement.
the wave propagation model to obtain the forecast of
phase-resolved wave dynamics at the desired location
and time. We outline the key ideas in each procedure
below.
Reconstruction of relevant wave components from
radar intensity images
We developed an improved algorithm for the recon-
struction of phase-resolved wave field from incoherent
X-band radar measurements, based on the work of
Young et al.3 and Nieto-Borge et al.4. The effectiveness
of the method was verified by the use of both synthetic
radar images and real radar wave data (Zinchenko
et al.13). A significant modification made in Zinchenko
et al.13 from the traditional approach is to transform
the radar image intensity from the non-negative range
to a ‘‘wave elevation’’-like representation by centering
the intensity data around the zero mean. This modifica-
tion has been shown to largely enhance the consistency
and fidelity of wave-field reconstruction from the inco-
herent X-band radar return signals.
Figure 1 displays a schematic diagram illustrating
the main procedures in the reconstruction and forecast
of phase-resolved wave field (and its spectrum) from
the ship-mounted X-band radar wave measurements. A
sequence of radar intensity signals in the selected rec-
tangular subdomain of the radar image is transformed
into a three-dimensional (two dimensions in space and
one dimension in time) spectrum by applying a three-
dimensional Discrete Fourier Transform (3D-DFT).
The propagating wave-related signal is extracted from
the 3D image spectrum by filtering. The high-pass filter
is used to eliminate nonphysical long-range dependent
Proc IMechE Part M: J Engineering for the Maritime Environment 235(2)
modulation effects.4 The band-pass filter then extracts
the wave-related components based on the linear dis-
persion relation. The empirical modulation transfer
function proposed by Nieto-Borge et al.4 is used to
account for the complex modulation effects associated
with the formation mechanism of radar clutter intensity
images, such as hydrodynamic modulation, tilt modu-
lation and geometric shadowing. Application of the
inverse 3D-DFT on the processed image spectrum
yields the unscaled phase-resolved sea surface elevation.
The scaling of the sea surface elevation could be
obtained by calibrating the significant wave height of
the wave field with respect to the signal-to-noise ratio
(Qi et al.,7 Nieto-Borge,14 Nieto-Borge et al.15) or the
independent wave data. Once the phase-resolved physi-
cal wave components are reconstructed from the radar
return signals, they are used to forecast the spatial-
temporal evolution of the wave field while these wave
components continue to propagate downstream.
We remark that the use of the empirical
wavenumber-dependent modulation transfer function
(MTF) for considering the complex modulation effects
in radar intensity image formation is a significant sim-
plification in wave reconstruction. Many efforts have
been devoted to improving the understanding of radar
image formation mechanisms and modifying the form
of MTF for better consistency and fidelity of wave
reconstruction. With the use of concurrent phase-
resolved wave field simulations, Qi et al.7 found that
the optimal value of the exponent of MTF depends on
the location and size of reconstruction subdomain,
wave conditions (such as sea state and wave frequency
and directional spectra), and current. Lund et al.16
explored the behavior of the exponent of MTF with
varying the range and azimuth of the reconstruction
Zinchenko et al.
rectangular subdomain in the radar image. Støle-
Hentschel et al.17 showed that the tilt modulation can
cause a phase shift in the complex MTF. Despite these
advances, the development of a simple robust MTF is
still underway.
Forecast of phase-resolved wave field evolution
Predictable zone. An important issue of wave prediction
is where and when the phase-resolved wave motion in
the irregular wave field can be correctly and accurately
determined based on the specific limited measure-
ments11. Morris et al.18 first suggested that there exists
a certain space-time domain (also called predictable
zone) inside which the phase-resolved wave solution
can be reliably obtained and believed that the predict-
able zone is determined by the maximum and minimum
phase speeds of the wave components in the wave field.
By various numerical examples, Wu19 later showed that
it is wave’s group velocity instead of phase velocity that
decides the predictable zone. This is consistent with the
well-known classical knowledge that the energy of wave
disturbances propagates at the wave group velocity.
This result is further investigated and verified in recent
works on the basis of numerical simulations and experi-
ments (Blondel et al.,20 Blondel-Couprie and Naaijen,5
Naaijen et al.12).
Qi et.al.11 derived and illustrated the theoretical
solution of the predictable zone in the space-time
domain, based on the linearized wave theory, with gen-
eral hybrid wave data given by stationary or mobile
probes and/or instantaneous whole-area measurements
(such as those by marine radars). The predictable zone
of the wave field is fully determined in terms of the
maximum and minimum wave group velocities and
direction spreading angle of the wave field, in addition
to the spatial and temporal extents of the prescribed
wave measurements.
Figure 2 displays a sample illustration of the predict-
able zone for a unidirectional irregular wave field based
on the wave measurement at the single fixed point
x = x0 during the duration of ½0, T. The wave propa-
gation direction is assumed to be along the positive x-
axis. The maximum and minimum group velocities of
the wave components in the wave field are Cg, max and
Cg, min , respectively. With the segment ½0, T on the t-
axis representing the duration of wave measurement,
the shaded triangle area is the predictable zone inside
which the space-time varying wave elevation can be
reliably predicted in terms of the specified recorded
time trace of the wave elevation at x = x0 . Physically, a
space-time point belongs to the predictable zone if all
the wave information at this point can be traced back
to the given wave data. In other words, a point does
not belong to the predictable zone if any of the wave
information at this point comes from the area outside
the given measurement region (in the space-time
domain). For any spatial location x = xp inside this
predictable zone, the wave can be validly predicted for
359
Figure 2. Predictable zone (shaded triangle area) for a
unidirectional wave field based on the wave measurement by
one fixed probe located at x = x0 during a period of time T. The
waves are assumed to propagate along the positive x direction.
 
The wave motion at x = xp in the duration of tp, 1 , tp, 2 can be
completely predicted.
 
tp, 1 4t4tp, 2 with tp, 1 = xp  x0 =Cg, min and
tp, 2 = T + xp  x0 =Cg, max . Note that the wave infor-
mation for t . T is the forecast based on the wave data
in ½0, T.
The algorithm illustrated above for unidirectional
waves can be directly generalized for multi-directional
wave fields.11 Specifically, for a multidirectional wave
field, the size of the predictable zone depends on the
spreading angle range in addition to the wave frequen-
cies and the spatial-temporal domain of the given wave
measurement. From the directional wave spectrum
obtained from the given wave data, we can determine
the maximum and minimum wave frequencies and the
directional spreading angle. With these, we find the
predictable zone in each wave propagation direction as
for unidirectional waves. The mutual intersection of
the predictable zones in all directions within the spread-
ing angle then gives the predictable zone for the multi-
directional wave field.21,22 The detailed algorithm on
the determination of the predictable zone for multiple-
probes or whole-area wave data can be found in Qi
et al.11 By the use of wave probe measurements in a
large wave basin, Simanesew et al.10 presented valida-
tions of deterministic wave prediction of multi-
directional wave fields. Qi et al.21 obtained validations
with the use of both multiple-probe and whole-area
wave data. As pointed out in these studies, sufficient
wave data in the spatial domain are needed to resolve
the directionality of short-crested seas, which signifi-
cantly affects the accuracy of wave prediction in the
predictable zone. In general, it is more challenging to
forecast short-crested waves with broader directional
spreading. The use of marine radar wave measurements
360 Proc IMechE Part M: J Engineering for the Maritime Environment 235(2)
allows one to obtain high-resolution wave directional-
ity in practical conditions.
Linear wave propagation model. In principle, the wave
motion is nonlinear since the free-surface boundary
conditions are nonlinear inherently. The effect of free-
surface nonlinearity on wave motion generally depends
on the wave steepness (related to sea states) and the
spatial and temporal scales of applications. For the
purpose of obtaining a short-time (i.e. up to a few min-
utes) deterministic wave forecast around the ship on
which the marine radar is installed, the distance and
time of wave propagation (starting from the wave
reconstruction area) may not be sufficiently large for
wave nonlinearity to play an important role in wave
propagation. On the other hand, the wave reconstruc-
tion from radar return signals is achieved based on the
linearized wave theory. The primary interest here is to
evaluate the accuracy and fidelity of deterministic wave
prediction based on the relatively simple linear wave
model. Nonlinear effects are expected to be relevant in
rough seas, which will be considered after we obtain
the assessment of the performance of linear wave
modeling.
In this work, we use a phase-resolved linear wave
propagation model to predict the wave information
inside the predictable zone. The model is initialized by
the specified wave data. In the case of wave data given
in terms of radar measurements, for example, the wave
components in the propagation model are given by the
spectral components reconstructed from the sequence
of radar return signals. The wave elevation of the wave
field from the propagation model, which is the super-
position of these wave components, can be expressed in
the form:
X
N x 1 N
X y 1 N
X t =2
hp ðx, y, tÞ = Aijq cos
i=0 j=0 q=0 ð1Þ
   
~ 
kq  xcos(uij ) + ysin(uij )  vq t + uijq
where Aijq , vq and uijq are respectively the amplitudes,
angular frequencies and initial phase angles of the spec-
tral wave components obtained from the 3D-DFT of
the radar intensity images. Here Nx and Ny are the
numbers of data points in the rectangular region
selected from the radar image for wave reconstruction,
Nt is the number of sequential radar images used in
wave reconstruction. k~q is the wavenumber vector
related to the angular frequency vq by the dispersion
relation that takes the following form in deep water:
  v2q Nt
~ 
kq  = , q = 0, :::, 1 ð2Þ
g 2
with
2pq Nt
vq = , q = 0, :::,  1, ð3Þ
ðNt DtÞ 2 amplitude of the predicted waves.
where Dt is the time increment in the time sequence of
the radar images. The wave propagation direction angle
uij is set to bethe direction of the wavenumber vector
k~ij = kx, i , ky, j :
ky, j
uij = tan1 : ð4Þ
kx, i
We note that only the wavenumber vectors k~ij left from
the band filtering in the reconstruction are considered
in the wave propagation model. (The Fourier compo-
nents that are filtered out will have zero amplitude.)
Furthermore, in order to ensure all the wave compo-
nents satisfying the dispersion relation, the wavenum-
ber magnitude of the ijq-th
  wave component
 is slightly
~  ~ 
shifted to the value of kq  from kij  while the direction
*
of this component is kept the same as that of kij . As
pointed out by Naaijen and Blondel-Couprie6 and
Blondel-Couprie and Naaijen,5 the 3D DFT of any
irregular ocean wave field may assign (a small amount
of) energy to wave components traveling in the direc-
tions that should not contain any energy according to
the average directional spectrum (Naaijen and Blondel-
Couprie6 and Blondel-Couprie and Naaijen5). These
non-physical components are removed in the recon-
struction process.
In this work, we use the Pearson correlation coeffi-
cient as the main indicator to measure the consistency
and fidelity of the wave prediction at a location
ðxm , ym Þ, which is defined by
rðxm , ym Þ =
P  
i ðhðxm , ym , ti Þ  h  Þ hp ðxm , ym , ti Þ  h p
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ,
P  P  2
i ðhðxm , ym , ti Þ  h  Þ2 i hp ðxm , ym , ti Þ  h p
ð5Þ
where h  and h  p represent the mean of benchmarked
wave elevation, hðxm , ym , tÞ, and modeled (i.e. pre-
dicted) wave elevation, hp ðxm , ym , tÞ, respectively. It is
known that the correlation coefficient represents how
linear the relation between two data sets is. For harmo-
nic functions, it can be understood as a measure of the
phase correspondence of the two data sets. Properly
capturing the phase variation of the wave field is the
major concern in the problem of phase-resolved (or
deterministic) wave prediction. In addition, we estimate
the point-to-point absolute error eðx, y, tÞ between the
measured/simulated wave elevation hðx, y, tÞ and the
predicted wave elevation hp ðx, y, tÞ by
 
hðx, y, tÞ  h ðx, y, tÞ
eðx, y, tÞ =
p
ð6Þ
Hm0
in which Hm0 is the significant wave height of the wave
field. The error eðx, y, tÞ measures the accuracy in the
Zinchenko et al. 361

We remark that even though the presented algo-
rithms in wave reconstruction and forecast are straight-
forward, the quality of deterministic wave prediction
remains not well understood owing to a number of
empirical and simplified formulas and processes
involved in the reconstruction of waves from radar
return signals, the assimilation of reconstructed wave
data into the propagation model, and the phase-
resolved modeling of complex nonlinear wave
dynamics. Assessment of the performance of the short-
time deterministic wave prediction is crucial for practi-
cal applications of such an attractive technology. We
shall address this issue below by the use of both syn-
thetic and real-field wave data.
effect of geometric shadowing which is a main factor
affecting radar return signals. The shadowed radar
images are simulated by applying a characteristic func-
tion denoting the points visibility on the snapshots of
the simulated sea surface elevation.7 Specifically, the
sea surface at the position ðx, yÞ is treated as visible by
the radar if the radar ray does not intersect any part of
the sea surface before arriving at this position. In the
synthetic radar images, the intensity values at shadow-
ing points are set to be zero. The intensity values at
visible points are proportional to the wave elevation,
which are scaled to a non-negative range of [0, 255] cor-
responding to 256 gray levels.

Validation of the predicted wave spectrum and wave

Validation with synthetic simulated radar elevation
measurements To verify the accuracy of the wave reconstruction and
Synthetic linear wave field and simulated radar data forecast algorithms, we first consider the synthetic
radar data for which the benchmark wave solution is
We first apply the synthetic radar return signals to ver-
known. As an example, we consider a unidirectional
ify the consistency and accuracy of the wave recon-
irregular wavefield. The sea state is characterized by a
struction and forecast capability. Assuming the linear
JONSWAP spectrum with a typical North Sea period
wave model, the simulated sea surface elevation
of 8.4 s and a significant wave height of 4.0 m. For the
hðx, y, tÞ is specified by the superposition of N3L pro-
simulated wave field, we use Dv = 1:2573104 rad/s
pagating wave components, containing N frequencies
and a total number of N = 100 000 wave components.
vi , i = 1, :::, N and L propagation directions uj ,
To verify the reconstruction scheme, the sea surface is
j = 1, :::, L:
reconstructed based on a radar-sensed area of
N X
X L   750 3 750 m2 with Nx = Ny = 512 equally-spaced grid
hðx, y, tÞ = a vi , uj points in the x- and y-directions. To mimic the real radar,
i=1 j=1 ð7Þ we choose a sampling time of Dt = 2.5 s. A duration of
      
  425 s sensed wave data with 170 surface realizations are
cos k~i  xcos uj + ysin uj  vi t + Fij ,
simulated. The shadowing effect is applied to each 2D sea
surface realization to obtain a sequence of synthetic radar
where Fij are random phases drawn from a uniform dis-
cluster images. The reconstruction method is applied to
tribution on the interval ½0, 2p, and k~i is the wavenum-
the sequence of synthetic radar images to reconstruct the
ber vector related to the corresponding frequency vi by
free-surface elevation of the wave field.
the dispersion relation. The amplitude of the wave com-
The obtained correlation between the reconstructed
ponent in (7) is specified by
and the original sea elevation is 95%. Figure 3 shows
  qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 
a vi , uj = 2Sh vi , uj DvDu, ð8Þ
 
where Sh vi , uj represents the directional spectrum,
and Dv and Du are the frequency and direction incre-
ments, respectively. The directional wave spectrum is
modeled as the product of the energy spectral density
function and the directional spreading function, DðuÞ.
There are many functional models in the literature to
represent the directional spreading of the sea surface.
Here, we adopt a normal frequency independent
spreading function:9
" #
A ð u  u0 Þ 2
DðuÞ = pffiffiffiffiffiffi exp  : ð9Þ
s 2p 2s2
Figure 3. Comparison of the power spectral density
where A is a scaling parameter, u0 is the mean wave reconstructed from the incoherent X-band radar images (red
direction, and s is the standard deviation. line) with that from the independent point measurement (blue
In this paper, the synthetic radar images of the simu- line). The results are for a synthetic unidirectional irregular
lated wave field are constructed by considering only the wavefield.
362
Figure 4. Superposition of the predictable zones with two successive time windows of wave data at x = x0 : (a) existence of a gap in
the predictable time duration and (b) continuous predictable time duration at x4xp with overlapping time windows of wave data in
wave prediction.
the comparison of the power spectral density recon-
structed from the simulated radar images with that
from the single point elevation measurement down-
stream, which has a duration of 600 s record at a sam-
pling time of 1.0 s. The spectral density function of the
reconstructed synthetic wave field is based on Nt = 64
sequential synthetic radar images of the sensed wave
area. The integration of the 3D frequency-wavenumber
spectrum obtained from the reconstruction gives the
1D frequency-dependent spectral density function. The
comparison shown in Figure 3 indicates that the wave
spectrum reconstructed from the radar images captures
the dominant part of the wave energy in the wave field
with the spectrum shape matched that of the indepen-
dent point measurement up to high frequency v = 1.25
rad/s. The wave spectrum at higher frequencies can be
reconstructed if a higher time resolution of radar
images is considered, which is associated with a larger
rotational speed of the radar.
After the reconstruction, the obtained 3D Fourier
spectral components are then used as the initial condi-
tion for the wave propagation model to forecast the
wave field evolution downstream. Properly overlapping
the time windows of wave reconstruction is of impor-
tance for the continuous prediction of long-time wave
field evolution by the propagation model. From the
predictable zone theory, the use of data at x = x0 in a
duration of ½0, T can provide a reliable phase-resolved
 interval at xp = 500 m is tp, 1 , tp, 2 with tp, 1 = 500/
wave prediction in the duration of tp, 1 , tp, 2 at the
downstream location x = xp , as shown in Figure 2. For
the next time window of prediction, we shift the dura-
tion of wave data forward by DT to ½DT, T + DT for
the re-initialization of the propagation model. For
clarity in description,we denote the associated predict-
able time period as tp, 3 , tp, 4 inside which a reliable
wave prediction at x = xp can be achieved based on the
wave data in ½DT, T + DT at x = x0 . In a sample case
of DT = T, as illustrated in Figure 4(a), there exists a
gap between the two neighboring predictable time
Proc IMechE Part M: J Engineering for the Maritime Environment 235(2)
   
zones tp, 1 , tp, 2 and tp, 3 , tp, 4 , inside which the phase-
resolved wave prediction cannot be obtained accu-
rately. To avoid the existence of such a gap, we must
have DT4tp, 2  tp, 1 as shown in Figure 4(b).
To verify the efficacy of the phase-resolved wave
forecast scheme, we examine the accuracy of wave pre-
diction at a sample location xp = 500 m which is 500 m
downstream of the lower edge (x0 = 0) of the radar
sensed area (750 m4x40). For the benchmark solu-
tion, a probe at xp is used to record the time variation
of the wave elevation of the simulated wave field. For
this point measurement, a sampling time of 1.0 s is
used, which is the same as that used in Miros
RangeFinder in the field test to be discussed in the next
section. In this example, as shown in Figure 3, most of
the wave energy in the wave spectrum is in the fre-
quency band v 2 ½0:6, 2:0 rad/s. The group velocities
of
 the waves with  these frequencies are in the range of
Cg, min , Cg, max = ½2:4, 8:1 m/s. For the wave predic-
tion based on the radar sensed wave data, the predict-
able zone can be considered as that for two discrete
probes located at the upper (x0 =  750 m) and lower
(x0 = 0) edges of the sensed area. For the time window
of wave data ½0, T = ½0, 160 s (corresponding to the
use of 64 sequential radar images with a sampling time
of Dt = 2.5 s in the wave reconstruction for the initial
condition of propagating model),  the
 predictable time
2.4 = 208 s and tp, 2 = (500 + 750)/8.1 + 160 = 315 s.
To achieve a continuous prediction, an overlapping of
time windows with DT = 105 s corresponding to 42
synthetic radar images is applied.
Figure 5(a) and (b) show the comparisons of the
time-varying wave elevation at xp = 500 m predicted
based on the single time window of wave data
½0, T = ½0, 160 s and [105, 265] s with the benchmark
measurement.
  The predictable zones are respectively
tp, 1 , tp, 2 = ½208, 315 s and ½313, 420 s which are
marked in the figure. Figure 5(c) displays the
Zinchenko et al.
Figure 5. Comparison of the predicted time varying wave
elevation (black line) with the benchmark point measurement
(blue line) at 500 m downstream the reconstructed wave
subdomain. The prediction is based on individual time windows
of wave data with Nt = 64 (a) and (b), on two successive time
windows (c) which is the combination of (a) and (b), and on
individual time window of longer time interval with Nt = 128 (d).
The theoretical predictable zone is marked by the vertical
dashed lines.
comparison of the predicted wave elevation in the time
period of ½208, 420 s for the combination of two suc-
cessive time windows of wave data. For this synthetic
wave field, we obtain a very good agreement between
the predicted wave elevation and the independent point
measurement at the target location, as zoomed in
Figure 5(c), with the correlation coefficient equal to
0.81. The point-to-point absolute prediction error eðtÞ
inside and outside the predictable zone is shown in
Figure 6. The bounding lines indicate borders of the
theoretical predictable zone. The error outside the
bounding lines is observed to be much larger than that
inside the predictable zone, further confirming that the
group velocity is the relevant parameter that bounds
the prediction area.
The use of longer time sequence of radar images (i.e.
larger than 64 realizations) provides a higher frequency
resolution and consequently less spectral leakage in
363
Figure 6. Point-to-point absolute error eðtÞ of the phase-
resolved wave prediction at xp = 500 m downstream the
reconstructed wave subdomain for the cases in Figure 5(a) (up
panel) and Figure 5(b) (low panel). The theoretical predictable
zone is marked by the vertical dashed lines.
wave reconstruction. This would further improve the
accuracy of wave prediction. This is confirmed by the
comparison shown in Figure 5(d), which compares the
predicted wave elevation based on the initial measure-
ment duration of T = 320 s (i.e. with Nt = 128 images
and sampling time Dt = 2.5 s in wave reconstruction)
with the benchmark
 measurement
 in the predictable
time zone of tp, 1 , tp, 2 = ½208, 475 s. The correlation
coefficient for this comparison is equal to 0.9. We
remark that to further increase the accuracy of wave
reconstruction and prediction, the spatial domain area
also needs to be increased while longer time sequence
of radar images is used in the wave reconstruction,
owing to the spatial periodicity implicitly assumed in
the 3D-DFT. Since the real field data considered in the
next section are all for directional seas, the validation
with the use of synthetic short-crested waves is not pre-
sented here.
Validation with real incoherent X-band
radar measurements
Onboard installation and RIMARC system integration
The presented research is a part of NORCE Research
and Kongsberg Seatex ECOSTEPS project, funded by
the MAROFF program from the Norwegian Research
Council. The main purpose of the project is the devel-
opment of a novel wave reconstruction and prediction
onboard system, called RIMARC, capable of forecast-
ing phase-resolved wave motions and vessel responses
few minutes in advance.
Integration of RIMARC with all external systems
such as radar server, Miros wave monitor and ship
motion simulator has been tested on a local set up with
emulation of all basic principles. This served for cap-
turing most of the connectivity problems and possible
error response when one of the systems fails. One of
364 Proc IMechE Part M: J Engineering for the Maritime Environment 235(2)
Figure 7. Measurement equipment installed onboard Normand Ocean for ECOSTEPS project.
the issues that required deep integration was the overall
performance of the system. RIMARC must be able to
hold contact to all the system and run the analysis in
parallel. Multiple threads communicate with the equip-
ment to have the most recent radar measurement ready
for prediction. Testing of the integration continued in a
laboratory at Kongsberg Maritim, where both the
radar simulator and Miros RangeFinder were present
physically.
RIMARC software has been successfully tested in
the field onboard an offshore vessel using Furuno X-
band radar data measurements. Test campaigns have
taken place from April to September 2019 in the
Norwegian offshore. The test vessel has been Solstad
IMR subsea construction vessel Normand Ocean con-
tracted by Equinor and operated by DeepOcean.
Figure 7 shows the location of the measuring equip-
ment installed at Normand Ocean for RIMARC soft-
ware validation during the project. Furuno X-Band
marine radar measurements are used to recover the
spectral and individual wave properties at a distance
from 500 m to 2500 m around the vessel. Consequently,
a numerical wave propagation model initialized by the
radar wave measurement is used to predict the wave ele-
vations around the vessel location. Miros RangeFinder
sea state monitoring sensor is used to verify the predic-
tion accuracy of the incoming waves.
Verification of predicted phase-resolved wave
elevation using real sea data
In the following, we present the direct quantitative com-
parison of the forecasted wave elevation at the ship site,
which is obtained based on the real X-band radar mea-
surements of upstream waves, with the independent
point measurements by Miros RangeFinder.
The system described above has been used to collect
the wave data during offshore operations at Visund
Oilfild, Snorre UPA and CCB Ågotnes locations. The
X-band marine radar was used to measure the sea sur-
face. The radar was set to operate in short pulse mode,
which allows for sea sate monitoring at a short range
(up to three nautical miles) with a high spatial resolu-
tion. For a 60 ns short pulse, a theoretical spatial reso-
lution of about 10 m is achieved. Sample radar intensity
images for sea surface measurements are shown in
Figure 13 in Appendix I. After estimating the 2D direc-
tional spectrum, the radar intensity images were rotated
to have the main energy propagation in the positive y-
direction. Then, a time series of consecutive rectangular
subareas (i.e. multiple-point fixed probe areas) of
1500 3 1500 m2 were selected (Figure 14 in Appendix
I). The upper border of the probe area is chosen to be
in 1000 m distance from the origin. The coordinates of
the prediction point (Miros RangeFinder location)
were transformed after the image rotation.
Assuming temporal stationarity, the sampling time
in the time series of radar images is set to be 2.56 s (since
the antenna rotational period was varied from 2.52 to
2.6 s). The spectrum reconstruction method contains a
number of filter parameters which have been calibrated
using Miros data. These parameters depend on the
radar settings and may vary from one radar to another.
The significant wave height Hm0 was evaluated from
the wave spectrum based on the point measurement by
Miros.
Figure 8 shows a summary of frequency-directional
wave spectra reconstructed from the radar images for
four representative sea states. The 3D spectra of the
radar images are obtained from a relatively short-time
wave measurement (;164 s) over a large space area
(with 512 3 512 grid points evenly distributed over the
square area of 1500 3 1500 m2) and represented as a
polar contour map of wave energy where the radial
coordinate represents the angular frequency and the
polar direction is the propagation direction of each
wave component. Each directional spectrum has been
normalized to have a maximum value of 1. The
Zinchenko et al.
Figure 8. Reconstructed frequency-directional spectrum based on real X-band marine radar measurements with the field data
from: (a) 04 April 2019, Hm0 = 2.87 m, (b) 11 April 2019, Hm0 = 1.2 m, (c) 20 April 2019, Hm0 = 2.7 m, and (d) 16 September 2019,
Hm0 = 4.1 m.
directional convention is that the values are plotted as
‘‘coming from’’ the direction shown, i.e. 90° indicates
coming from the top. The directional spectrum pro-
vides the governing information about the sea state and
allows one to identify unimodal (just the sea or one
swell), bimodal (sea and one swell), or multimodal sea
states (sea and two or more swells). Figure 8(a) displays
a unimodal swell and Figure 8(c) and (d) display unim-
odal wind-wave fields. The dominant waves in Figure
8(a) have a narrow directional spread with observable
energy within 620° of the dominant direction and a
peak period of about 10.5 s. This observation suggests
that the dominant waves are swell. Figure 8(b) shows
the bimodal wave field where the energy is concen-
trated over two dominant directions: one is for wind
waves with dominant periods in the range of 5.5–8.0 s
and significant broadening of directional spreading,
and the other is for swells with dominant periods in the
narrow range of 10.0–11.5 s. The angle between the
mean directions of wind waves and swells is approxi-
mately 120°. The energy of the sea state showed in
365
Figure 8(c) is concentrated in a narrow frequency band
with a peak period of about 7.3 s. The beam width of
the directional distribution in Figure 8(d) is the widest
near the spectral peak frequency (with the correspond-
ing period of ;7.8 s) and decreases toward lower fre-
quencies. This would be consistent with the wind waves
which were locally generated, rather than remotely gen-
erated swells.
Figure 15(a)–(d) in Appendix I show the contours of
sample reconstructed instantaneous sea surface eleva-
tion in the selected rectangular radar sensed areas.
These wave components from the reconstruction are
used to initialize the linear propagating model that can
then provide the forecast of phase-resolved wave
motion near the ship site.
Figure 9 shows the comparisons of the predicted
time-varying wave elevation with the independent point
elevation measurement by Miros RangeFinder at the
Miros location with the real-field data from 04 April
2019. The initial condition of the propagation model is
obtained from the wave reconstruction based on a
366 Proc IMechE Part M: J Engineering for the Maritime Environment 235(2)
Figure 9. Comparison of the predicted wave elevation (black
line) with the independent point wave measurement (blue line)
at the Miros location. The prediction is obtained from the
propagation model that is initialized with the reconstructed
wave field using a single time window of sequence of radar
measurement. (Field data from 04 April 2019, Hm0 = 2.87 m.).
single time window of measurements involving Nt = 64
consecutive radar images at sampling time Dt = 2.56 s
(with the total measurement duration  T ’164 s). The
wave-prediction (Miros) point ! xp = xp , yp is located
1000 m downstream the border of the chosen 2D wave-
reconstruction subdomain (Figures 13). For this multi-
directional wave field, we consider the dominant fre-
quency range of v 2 ½0:5, 1:2 rad/s (with the
corresponding
  group velocity range of
Cg, min , Cg, max = ½4:1, 9:8 m/s) and direction spread-
ing angle u 2 ½p=9, p=9. The predictable time inter-
val at the Miros location is estimated to be given by the
intersection of the predictable zones of all wave direc-
tions within the direction spreading range (Qi et al.7).
The starting time of the radar image measurement is
06:18:24 UTC. The predictable time given by the first
time window of radar measurements is [06:25:11,
06:26:32] UTC or ½409, 490 s from the starting time of
the measurement (Figure 9). To achieve a continuous
prediction at the Miros location, the next time window
of radar measurements for the reconstruction is shifted
forward by (a maximum of) 31 radar images with
DT = ;80 s. The predictable time durations for the
next individual time windows are about [485, 571] s,
[560, 635] s, and [623, 710] s as shown in Figure 9.
Figure 10. Point-to-point absolute error eðtÞ of the predicted
wave elevation at the Miros location for the cases shown in
Figure 9. Theoretical predictable zones are marked. (Field data
from 04 April 2019, Hm0 = 2.87 m.).
Combining the predictions in these time intervals yields
a continuous long-time wave prediction at the Miros
location. The point-to-point error of the prediction eðtÞ
for these cases are shown in Figure 10. The prediction
error inside the predictable zone is seen to be much
smaller than that outside the predictable zone.
Figure 11(a)–(d) display the comparisons of continu-
ous long-time wave elevation at the Miros location
between the prediction based on the overlapping time
windows of radar images and the independent Miros
measurement for four sea states with the significant
wave heights of Hm0 = 2.87 m, 1.2 m, 2.7 m, and 4.1 m.
The correlation coefficients for these long-time dura-
tions of wave prediction are 0.73, 0.55, 0.63, and 0.61
for Hm0 = 2.87 m, 1.2 m, 2.7 m, and 4.1 m, respectively.
Figure 12 shows the point-to-point prediction error eðtÞ
corresponding to the comparisons in Figure 11.
Despite the fact that the correlation coefficient in
the severe sea state (Hm0 = 4.1 m) is higher than that in
the mild sea state (Hm0 = 1.2 m), the agreement of pre-
dicted large-amplitude waves in severe sea states
(Figure 11(d)) seems to be less satisfactory than that in
milder sea states (Figure 11(b) and (c)). There are sev-
eral reasons for this observation. One reason is as
Figure 8(d) shows, a significant amount of short-wave
energy (about ;20% to the total energy) exists in this
severe sea state, which is not captured by the radar
Zinchenko et al.
Figure 11. Comparison of the predicted continuous time-
varying wave elevation (black line) and the independent point
measurement (blue line) at the Miros location with the real field
data from: (a) 04 April 2019, Hm0 = 2.87 m, (b) 11 April 2019,
Hm0 = 1.2 m, (c) 20 April 2019, Hm0 = 2.7 m, and (d) 16
September 2019, Hm0 = 4.1 m.
measurement and thus not properly considered in the
prediction. The second reason could be the nonlinear
wave effects of the severe sea state, which is not consid-
ered in the wave propagation model. The third reason
is due to the fact that the Miros data may contain some
(diffracted and radiated wave) effects from the presence
of the ship as the Miros location is close to the ship
bow. The fourth reason is because the shadowing effect
in radar measurement is stronger in severe sea states.
To obtain more accurate radar measurement in severe
seas, the height of radar antenna from the sea surface
should be increased.
The reason for the relatively lower correlation coeffi-
cient under the mild sea condition with the significant
wave height of 1.2 m is that the considered sea state is
bimodal (i.e. combination of wind-wave and swell-wave
components) with a large directional spreading of wave
components (Figure 8(b)). In general, it is a more chal-
lenging task to obtain reliable phase-resolved wave pre-
dictions for bimodal and multimodal wave fields,
especially when the wind sea and swells deviate largely
367
Figure 12. Point-to-point prediction error eðtÞ of the
continuous predicted wave elevation at the Miros location,
corresponding to the cases in Figure 11, with real field data
from: (a) 04 April 2019, Hm0 = 2.87 m, (b) 11 April 2019,
Hm0 = 1.2 m, (c) 20 April 2019, Hm0 = 2.7 m, and (d) 16
September 2019, Hm0 = 4.1 m.
in their dominant propagation directions. Even without
the presence of swells, bimodal sea states are common
as a result of nonlinear wave-field evolution, as found
out by Simanesew et al.23,24 In these cases, the charac-
teristically different wave groups (in seas and swells)
need to be treated separately in wave reconstruction
and forecast, which is beyond the scope of this work.
Conclusion
We demonstrate the effectiveness and quantify the
accuracy of a short-time deterministic wave prediction
capability by means of both synthetic and real-field
wave data. The method employs 3D DFT analyses to
extract and reconstruct the relevant physical wave com-
ponents from X-band marine radar cluster images.
These wave components are then used to initialize the
linear phase-resolved propagation model from which
the short-time deterministic forecast of wave motion
downstream the wave-reconstruction area can be
obtained. Independent measurements at a fixed (down-
stream) location are used as the benchmark solution to
assess the consistency and fidelity of the phase-resolved
368 Proc IMechE Part M: J Engineering for the Maritime Environment 235(2)
wave reconstruction and forecast based on radar sensed
surface data.
For the synthetic marine radar return signals of the
simulated unidirectional wave field, the predicted
phase-resolved wave elevation matches the benchmark
solution inside the predictable zone with the correlation
coefficient up to 0.8 ; 0.9. In the real field tests, four
multidirectional sea states with significant wave heights
of 2.87 m, 1.2 m, 2.7 m, and 4.1 m are considered. Based
on the real radar images, the reconstruction algorithm
satisfactorily recovers both unimodal and bimodal
wave spectra. The predicted phase-resolved wave eleva-
tion at the downstream location near the ship compares
reasonably well with the independent measurement
from the Miros RangeFinder sensor, with the domi-
nant wave components well captured. The correlation
coefficients for these realistic sea states are obtained to
be in the range of 0.55 ; 0.73 inside the predictable
zones, with relatively lower correlation coefficient for
the bimodal sea state. the estimated peak wave periods
are in a good agreement with the measurements.
The present study provides a much-needed quantita-
tive assessment of the deterministic wave prediction
based on the X-band marine radar wave sensing. The
forecasted short-time deterministic information about
upcoming waves can be useful in improving the safety
and enhancing the operation envelop in practical marine
activities. As future developments, further field tests are
needed to calibrate the empirical parameters involved in
the algorithms and test the performance of the wave
reconstruction and forecast capability under a broader
range of sea states. To improve the accuracy of the pre-
diction, the radar needs to be mounted at higher height
for more accurate measurement of large waves in severe
sea states. The use of faster rotational speed of the radar
better measures short waves. Nonlinear propagation
model may need to be employed for severe seas.
Acknowledgements
We would like to appreciate all technical consultancy
from Morten Lund Bjarnar at Kongsberg Seatex and
the radar specialist Kaj-Robin Weslien at Kongsberg
Maritime who made it possible to optimize the radar
logging and checking the wave predictions by Miros
wave measurements in the bow. We appreciate both
the people onboard and on land from the subsea opera-
tor Deepocean and vessel owner Solstad Offshore that
helped plan and carry out all these full-scale campaigns
under different sea conditions. We also want to thank
Equinor, the operator of the vessel, who approved that
the full-scale measurements were carried out during the
normal operation of the vessel.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest
with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publi-
cation of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following finan-
cial support for the research, authorship, and/or publi-
cation of this article: The project was funded by the
Research Council of Norway (RCN project number
269495).
ORCID iD
Victoria Zinchenko https://orcid.org/0000-0001-
9459-2577
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Appendix I
Figure 13. Sample radar intensity images for real field wave measurements from: (a) 04 April 2019, Hm0 = 2.87 m, (b) 11 April 2019,
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370 Proc IMechE Part M: J Engineering for the Maritime Environment 235(2)

Figure 14. Selected 2D subdomains of radar images used in wave reconstruction with the data from: (a) 04 April 2019,
Hm0 = 2.87 m, (b) 11 April 2019, Hm0 = 1.2 m, (c) 20 April 2019, Hm0 = 2.7 m, and (d) 16 September 2019, Hm0 = 4.1 m.
Zinchenko et al. 371

Figure 15. Sample frames of the reconstructed sea surface elevation based on the field radar wave measurements on: (a) 04 April
2019, Hm0 = 2.87 m, (b) 11 April 2019, Hm0 = 1.2 m, (c) 20 April 2019, Hm0 = 2.7 m, and (d) 16 September 2019, Hm0 = 4.1 m.