Abstract
Dominant wave groups within a wavefield play key hydrodynamic and morphodynamic processes. Herein, we present a method to detect and measure the parameters of these waves, such as their wavelength, propagation angle and period. Image sequences of the free surface are captured with the use of a commercial unmanned aerial system. A snapshot Proper Orthogonal Decomposition analysis is then applied to the image sequence, and a 2D autocorrelation is performed on the resulting modes. By detecting the mode with the highest correlation peak, it is then possible to infer the wave properties of the dominant wave. The outlined procedure is applied to ocean waves, shorter waves along a river and propagating ship wakes. Our results demonstrate an improvement in the Signal-to-Noise ratio of the peak wave signal to ambient noise over the more widely used Fast Fourier Transform approach.