Oil film thickness (OFT) is an important indicator for estimating the amount of oil spill, and accurately quantifying the OFT is of great significance for loss assessment. In this paper, hyperspectral images (HSIs) of different OFTs (0.01-3.04 mm) through a ground experiment were obtained, and the spectral characteristics were analyzed. To address the issue of poor spectral separability for different OFTs, the 1DConvolutional Neural Network_Gate Recurrent Unit (1DCNN_GRU) model was developed for the quantitative inversion of OFT. It was validated through experiments on airborne Cubert-S185 HSI. The experimental results indicated that: (1) The proposed 1DCNN_GRU model effectively addressed the issue of reduced quantitative inversion accuracy resulting from poor spectral separability. The inversion results of it outperformed those of the SVR, CNN, and GRU models. Moreover, the optimal time for hyperspectral sensor to monitor OFT was at noon. (2) The proposed model using airborne hyperspectral data exhibited excellent inversion performance for OFT greater than 0.07 mm, especially with the best performance in 0.60-0.90mm. (3) The accuracy of HSI based OFT inversion assisted by brightness temperature (BT) data was superior to that of OFT inversion using single-source data. In particular, the proposed model had advantages in the feature level and decision level inversion of OFT in the ranges of 0.01-0.30mm and 1.00-3.04mm, respectively. This research provides technical support for the detection of OFT.

An outdoor experiment was conducted to measure the thickness of oil films (0~3000 μm) using an airborne hyperspectral imager and thermal infrared imager, and the spectral response and thermal response of oil films of different thicknesses were analyzed. The classic support vector regression (SVR) model was used to retrieve the oil film thickness. On this basis, the suitable range for retrieving oil film thickness using hyperspectral and thermal infrared remote sensing was explored, and the decision-level fusion algorithm was developed to fuse the retrieval capabilities of hyperspectral and thermal infrared remote sensing for oil film thickness. The following conclusions can be drawn: (1) Based on airborne hyperspectral data and thermal infrared data, the retrieval accuracy of oil films of different thicknesses reached 154.31 μm and 116.59 μm, respectively. (2) The S185 hyperspectral data were beneficial for retrieving thicknesses greater than or equal to 400 μm, and the H20T thermal infrared data were beneficial for retrieving thicknesses greater than 500 μm. (3) The result of the decision-level fusion model based on a fuzzy membership degree was superior to those obtained using a single sensor (hyperspectral or thermal infrared), indicating that it can better integrate the retrieval results of hyperspectral and thermal infrared remote sensing for oil film thickness. Furthermore, the feasibility of using hyperspectral and thermal infrared remote sensing to detect water-in-oil emulsions of different thicknesses was investigated through spectral response and thermal response analysis.

Oil spills on the sea surface have caused serious harm to the marine ecological environment and coastal environment. Oil film thickness (OFT) is an important parameter for estimating oil spills amount, and accurate quantification of OFT is of great significance for rapid response and risk assessment of oil spills. In recent years, thermal infrared remote sensing has been gradually applied to quantify the OFT. In this paper, the outdoor oil spill simulation experiments were designed, and the bright temperature (BT) data of different OFTs were obtained for 24 consecutive hours in summer and autumn. On the basis of the correlation analysis of OFT and bright temperature difference (BTD) between oil and water, the traditional regression fitting model, classical machine learning model, ensemble learning model, and deep learning model were applied to the inversion of OFT. At the same time, inversion results of the four models were compared and analyzed. In addition, the best OFT inversion time using thermal infrared was studied based on 24-h thermal infrared data. Additionally, the inversion results were compared with the measured results; the optimal OFT range detectable using thermal infrared was explored. The experimental results show that: (1) Compared with ensemble learning model, traditional regression fitting model, and classical machine learning model, Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) has the advantages of high stability while maintaining high-precision inversion, and can be used as the preferred model for oil film thickness inversion; (2) The optimal time for OFT detection is around 10:00 to 13:00 of the day, and is not affected by seasonal changes; (3) During the day, thermal infrared has good detection ability for OFT greater than 0.4 mm, and weak detection ability for thinner oil films; (4) At night, thermal infrared has certain detection ability for relatively thick oil film, but the accuracy is lower than that in the daytime.