Evaluation of speckle noise MAP filtering algorithms applied to SAR images

This work proposes new speckle reduction filters for multi-look, amplitude-detected Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images based on the maximum a posteriori (MAP) approach and compares their performance. The new filters use an adaptive approach based on the one-dimensional k-means clustering algorithm over the variance ratio and also a region-growing procedure. The trade-off between the loss of radiometric resolution and edge preservation is evaluated in the filtered images. In order to obtain quantitative measures of the speckle reduction and of the edge blurring, we used some parameters such as the classical equivalent number of looks and the Hough transform. Experiments have been carried out with natural images corrupted with synthetic speckle noise following the Rayleigh and square root of gamma distributions and with real SAR images.     

SAR image processing using adaptive stack filter

Stack filters are a special case of non-linear filters. They have a good performance for filtering images with different types of noise while preserving edges and details. A stack filter decomposes an input image into several binary images according to a set of thresholds. Each binary image is filtered by a Boolean function. The Boolean function that characterizes an adaptive stack filter is optimal and is computed from a pair of images consisting of an ideal noiseless image and its noisy version. In this work the behavior of adaptive stack filters on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is evaluated. With this aim, the equivalent number of looks for stack filtered data are calculated to assess the speckle noise reduction capability of this filter. Then a classification of simulated and real SAR images is carried out on data filtered with a stack filter trained with selected samples. The results of a maximum likelihood classification of these data are evaluated and compared with the results of classifying images previously filtered using the Lee and the Frost filters.     

SRAD-CNN for adaptive synthetic aperture radar image classification

The performance of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image classification based on a conventional convolutional neural network (CNN) is limited by a trade-off between immunity to speckle noise and the ability to locate boundaries accurately. Difficulties regarding the accurate location of boundaries are a result of the smoothing effect of the pooling layer. To address this issue, we propose a novel framework called SRAD-CNN for SAR image classification. In this framework, we apply a filtering layer constructed according to prior knowledge of the speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion (SRAD) filter. The filtering layer can not only reduce speckle but also enhance the boundaries. The main parameter that controls the degree of filtering can be optimized adaptively by a backpropagation algorithm. Image patches adaptively filtered by the filtering layer are then put into the CNN layers to assign a label. Due to the effect of the filtering layer, for our proposed SRAD-CNN, both the speckle noise immunity and the sensitivity to boundaries are superior to those of conventional CNN.To confirm the performance of the proposed SRAD-CNN, we conducted experiments using both simulated and real SAR images. The experimental results demonstrated that the parameter of the filtering layer could be optimized adaptively for different scenes, different noise levels, and different image resolutions. The SRAD-CNN outperformed the conventional CNN in both overall classification accuracy and maintenance of boundary accuracy on images with different resolutions and noise levels with limited training samples.     

极化SAR相干斑抑制的非局部加权最小均方误差滤波算法

目的 相干斑的存在严重影响了极化合成孔径雷达(PolSAR)的影像质量.对相干斑的抑制是使用SAR数据的必不可少的预处理程序.提出一种基于非局部加权的线性最小均方误差(LMMSE)滤波器的极化SAR滤波的方法.方法 该方法的主要过程是利用非局部均值的理论来获取LMMSE估计器中像素样本的权重.同时,在样本像素的选取过程中,利用待处理像素的极化散射特性和邻域块的异质性来排除不相似像素以加速算法,同时达到保持点目标和自适应调节块窗口大小的目的.结果 模拟影像和真实影像上进行的实验结果表明,采用这种方法滤波后影像的质量得到明显改善.和传统的LMMSE算法相比,无论是单视的影像还是多视的影像,本文方法去噪结果的等效视数都高出8视以上;峰值信噪比也提升了5.8 dB.同时,去噪后影像分类的总体精度也达到了83％以上,该方法的运行效率也比非局部均值算法有了较大提升.结论 本文方法不仅能够有效抑制相干斑噪声,还能较好地保持边缘和细节信息以及极化散射特性.这将会为后续高效利用SAR数据提供保障.     

Coastline extraction from SAR images using spatial fuzzy clustering and the active contour method

Coastline extraction from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is difficult because of the presence of speckle noise and strong signal returns from the wind-roughened and wave-modulated sea surface. High resolution and weather change independent of SAR data lead to better monitoring of coastal sea. Therefore, SAR coastline extraction has taken up much interest. The active contour method is an efficient algorithm for the edge detection task; however, applying this method to high-resolution images is time-consuming. The current article presents an efficient approach to extracting coastlines from high-resolution SAR images. First, fuzzy clustering with spatial constraints is applied to the input SAR image. This clustering method is robust for noise and shows good performance with noisy images. Next, binarization is carried out using Otsu’s method on the fuzzification results. Third, morphological filters are used on the binary image to eliminate spurious segments after binarization. To extract the coastline, an active contour level set method is used on the initial contours and is applied to the input SAR image to refine the segmentation. Because the proposed approach is based on an active contour model, it does not require preprocessing for SAR speckle reduction. Another advantage of the proposed method is the ability to extract the coastline at full resolution of the input SAR image without degrading the resolution. The proposed approach does not require manual initialization for the level set method and the proposed initialization speeds up the level set evolution. Experimental results on low- and high-resolution SAR images showed good performance for coastline extraction. A criterion based on neighbourhood pixels for the coastline is proposed for the quantitative expression of the accuracy of the method.     

A statistical and Wiener filtering algorithm based on the curvelet transform for SAR images

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images contain many kinds of noise. Speckle noise is multiplicative noise generated by the coherent imaging processes involved in SAR images and brings a great hindrance to the interpretation and application of SAR images, so it is considered the first major kind of noise in SAR images. SAR images also contain other incoherent additive noises generated by other factors, such as Gaussian noise, which are all considered the second major kind of noise. In order to reduce the impact of noise as much as possible, after an in-depth study of SAR imaging and noise-generating mechanism, curvelet transform principle, and Wiener filtering characteristic, a novel filtering method, here called the statistical and Wiener based on curvelet transform (SWCT) method is proposed. The SWCT algorithm processes two different kinds noise based on their properties. Specifically, it establishes a two-tiered filtering framework. For the first kind of noise, the algorithm uses the curvelet transform to decompose the SAR image and uses the statistical characteristics of the SAR image to generate an adaptive filtering threshold of the coefficients of decomposition to recover the original image. Then it filters every sub-band image at each decomposed scale and performs the inverse curvelet transform. The second kind of noise is directly filtered using the Wiener filter in the SWCT algorithm. Using the two-tiered filtering model and fully exploiting statistical characteristics, the SWCT algorithm not only reduces the amount of coherent speckle noise and incoherent noise effectively but also retains the edges and geometric details of the original SAR image. This is very good for target detection, classification, and recognition. Qualitative and quantitative tests were performed using simulated speckle noise, Gaussian noise, and real SAR images. The proposed SWCT algorithm was found to remove noise effectively and the performance of the algorithm was tested and compared to the mean filter, enhanced gamma-MAP (maximum a posterior probability) filter, wavelet transform filter, Wiener filter, and curvelet transform filter. Experiments carried out on real SAR images confirmed that the new method has a good filtering effect and can be used on different SAR images.     

高分辨率合成孔径雷达图像高速公路检测法

针对高分辨率合成孔径雷达（SAR）图像中高速公路的特征,提出了一种结合多级非线性加权平均中值滤波和Hough变换的高速公路检测算法。该算法首先对原始高分辨率SAR图像进行多级非线性加权平均中值滤波,抑制斑点噪声,同时较好地保留图像的几何特性。然后对滤波后的图像进行Hough变换快速检测高速公路,并将检测到的高速公路信息叠加到原始SAR图像上显示。实验结果证明该算法能快速、有效地从不同工作模式下取得的高分辨率SAR图像中检测到直线高速公路。     

Noise reduction in synthetic aperture radar images using fuzzy logic and genetic algorithm

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a self-illuminating imaging technique; it produces high resolution images in all weather conditions, day and night. SAR images are widely accepted and used by many application scientists. However, the SAR images are corrupted with speckle noise. Speckle noises are caused by random interference of electromagnetic signals scattered by the object surface within one resolution element. The amount of noise and distribution of noise corrupting the image is unpredictable. Conventional noise filters are quantitative in nature; they are not well suited for uncertainty problems. Fuzzy logic is capable of handling uncertainty. In this work, noisy pixels in the images are identified by using fuzzy rules and filtered using fuzzy weighted mean, keeping the healthy pixels unchanged. The optimum value of parameters used in defining fuzzy membership function is determined by using genetic algorithm (GA). Reducing noise and simultaneously preserving image details are the two most desirable characteristics of noise filters. Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and edge preserving factor (EPF) are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed fuzzy filter. SAR images affected by varying amounts of speckle noise are used to evaluate the performance. It was observed that the proposed filter suppresses noise and preserves image edges.

     

Application of special-purpose artificial neural networks for speckle reduction in SAR images

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is used extensively for remote-sensing applications due to its ability to operate under all weather conditions and provide high-resolution images. However, high-resolution images constructed from SAR data often suffer from speckle, which makes identification and classification of edges/boundaries a difficult task. Speckle noise is multiplicative in nature and is a result of constructive and destructive interference of signals from randomly distributed scatterers in a resolution cell illuminated by a coherent signal. Usually, speckle is reduced by incoherent averaging of high-resolution image pixels that degrade resolution. The principal goal in all speckle-reduction algorithms is to reduce speckle with minimum loss of resolution. In this investigation, we used specially trained and validated artificial neural networks (ANNs) for speckle reduction in images generated with a radar-depth sounder/imager and compared their performance to the conventional adaptive filtering and Speckle Reducing Anisotropic Diffusion (SRAD) algorithm. We show that by training different ANNs to reduce speckle noise at different levels of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), rather than training one ANN to operate at all levels of SNR, improved performance in speckle reduction can be obtained. Real SAR images and synthetic noise are used in this research to compare the performance of the proposed ANN-based approaches with that obtained from conventional methods. This investigation shows that on combining the results from a set of properly trained and validated neural networks, the SNRs of the output images improve beyond those obtained from conventional approaches when the input SNRs are greater than or equal to 4 dB. For input SNRs greater than 0 dB, however, the ANNs provide better performance in edge preservation compared with conventional methods. We also found that once a set of ANNs is properly trained to reduce speckle from an image, these ANNs can be used in de-speckling other images without any further training. The merits and demerits of different configurations of the ANNs are studied to find useful speckle noise-tolerant ANN architectures.     

极化合成孔径雷达相干斑抑制极化信息保持能力定量评估

针对采用极化特征图主观评估PolSAR相干斑抑制算法的极化信息保持能力存在一定的不足,提出了一种基于极化特征图相关系数的相干斑抑制效果评估方法.该方法实现了对PolSAR相干斑抑制算法极化信息保持能力的定量评估,能够更为精确地反映不同滤波器及滤波参数变化对PolSAR散射特性的影响.仿真数据和实测ESAR数据的相干斑抑制效果评估实验,验证了该方法的有效性.     

一种改进的SAR图像LEE滤波算法

针对SAR图像相干斑滤波中存在的降低相干斑与有效保持细节信息这一矛盾,研究了常用空域滤波算法,在此基础上,将中值滤波与增强LEE滤波相结合,改进了LEE滤波算法,该方法能够在滤除相干斑的同时很好地保持图像的边缘及细节纹理信息。     

Classification of SAR images using morphological texture features

This paper presents applications of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image classification using morphological texture features. The texture features are based on morphological residues of opening and closing by reconstruction. It is shown that this set of features shows high 'robustness' to speckle perturbation in SAR images compared with those derived from traditionalmorphological residues. An algorithm based on estimating the divergence between and within classes was constructed in order to search for a discriminating feature subset. Higher classification accuracy was obtained by the optimized feature subset than by using other feature subsets derived from some well known texture characterization approaches. The classification accuracy was continuously improved by the introduction of post-processing filtering.     

基于信噪比最大化的极化SAR滤波算法

为提高图像可读性、改善图像质量,提出基于信噪比最大化的极化SAR图像的融合去噪算法。根据图像滤波时信噪比最大的要求,采用均方误差最小作为收敛条件,分别对极化SAR图像的2个极化方向进行滤波融合,并与传统Lee滤波算法和自适应阈值算法进行比较,结果证明该算法性能更高。     

SAR图像相干斑抑制研究进展

相干斑抑制是SAR图像处理领域的研究热点之一,也是SAR图像解译和应用中的关键步骤,因此SAR图像的相干斑抑制算法具有重要的研究价值。在简要介绍SAR图像相干斑的产生机理和数学模型的基础上,综述了国内外相干斑抑制的最新研究成果,重点分析了空域滤波和变换域滤波两类方法。从算法的可行性角度出发,分析了几种具有代表性的相干斑抑制方法及其优缺点,总结了常用相干斑抑制效果评价指标,最后对今后工作方向进行了展望。     

SAR影像海洋表面溢油检测方法与实现

海洋是地球的重要组成部分,它为人类提供了丰富的物质和宝贵的资源,每年海洋都承受着不同程度的侵害,其中油类污染是给海洋造成巨大危害的污染之一。而油类污染又主要来源于轮船破裂漏油以及油井平台或海底输油管道爆炸等。每次事故造成的直接经济损失达几百万至上千万不等,所以对海上溢油进行监测具有重要的意义。选用Envisat的ASAR数据进行海上溢油检测,介绍并分析了SAR图像溢油检测的一般步骤及其实现方法,通过采用单一阈值分割法、最大熵分割法和非监督分类法对影像进行目标检测,从而粗略地将影像区分为前景区域与背景区域,并结合影像的纹理特征进行分类。在纹理特征选取过程中,通过人工选取部分溢油区与非溢油区作为感兴趣区,在感兴趣区上分别统计SAR影像常用的纹理特征,并结合不同目标检测的结果以及原始影像进行基于BP神经网络的分类,得到了良好的效果。最后展望了SAR图像海洋溢油检测的发展方向。     

Object-based land cover classification of shaded areas in high spatial resolution imagery of urban areas: A comparison study

A significant proportion of high spatial resolution imagery in urban areas can be affected by shadows. Considerable research has been conducted to investigate shadow detection and removal in remotely sensed imagery. Few studies, however, have evaluated how applications of these shadow detection and restoration methods can help eliminate the shadow problem in land cover classification of high spatial resolution images in urban settings. This paper presents a comparison study of three methods for land cover classification of shaded areas from high spatial resolution imagery in an urban environment. Method 1 combines spectral information in shaded areas with spatial information for shadow classification. Method 2 applies a shadow restoration technique, the linear-correlation correction method to create a “shadow-free” image before the classification. Method 3 uses multisource data fusion to aid in classification of shadows. The results indicated that Method 3 achieved the best accuracy, with overall accuracy of 88%. It provides a significantly better means for shadow classification than the other two methods. The overall accuracy for Method 1 was 81.5%, slightly but not significantly higher than the 80.5% from Method 2. All of the three methods applied an object-based classification procedure, which was critical as it provides an effective way to address the problems of radiometric difference and spatial misregistration associated with multisource data fusion (Method 3), and to incorporate thematic spatial information (Method 1).     

On the application of Gabor filtering in supervised image classification

Image texture can be an important source of data in the image classification process. Although not as easily measurable as image spectral attributes, image texture has proved in a number of cases to be a valuable source of data capable of increasing the accuracy of the classification process. In remote sensing there are cases in which classes are spectrally very similar, but present distinct spatial distribution, i.e. different textural characteristics. Image texture becomes then an important source of information in the classification process. The aim of this study is (1) to develop and test a supervised image classification method based on the image spatial texture as extracted by the Gabor filtering concept and (2) to investigate experimentally the performance of the classification process as a function of the Gabor filter's parameters. A set of Gabor filters is initially generated for the given image data. The filter parameters related to the relevant spatial frequencies present in the image are estimated from the available samples via the Fourier transform. Each filter generates one filtered image which characterizes the particular spatial frequency implemented by the filter parameters. As a result, a number of filtered images, sometimes referred to as 'textural bands', are generated and the originally univariate problem is transformed into a multivariate one, every pixel being defined by a vector with dimension identical to the number of filters used. The multidimensional image data can then be classified by implementing an appropriate supervised classification method. In this study the Euclidean Minimum Distance and the Gaussian Maximum Likelihood classifiers are used. The adequacy of the selected Gabor filter parameters (namely, the spatial frequency and the filter's spatial extent) are then examined as a function of the resulting classification accuracy. The proposed supervised methodology is tested using both synthetic and real image data. Results are presented and analysed.     

A standard index of spatial resolution for distributed targets in synthetic aperture radar imagery

In this article we outline the need for a consistent method of quoting synthetic aperture radar (SAR) resolution given the influence of speckle upon SAR images. Standard measures of resolution depend upon the separability of point targets; however, this is not a useful analogy in the context of SAR. We contend that quoting resolution for a 3–4-look product may be unrealistic given the influence of speckle. Our approach considers the separability of targets that differ in intensity by a known contrast ratio, with a ratio of 2, that is, 3 dB difference, used as the threshold value. It is demonstrated that 12 looks represents a more realistic estimate of the capabilities of the system and should be used to quote an equivalent spatial resolution (ESR) when describing potential instrument performance.     

Appropriate scale of soil moisture retrieval from high resolution radar imagery for bare and minimally vegetated soils

This research investigates the appropriate scale for watershed averaged and site specific soil moisture retrieval from high resolution radar imagery. The first approach involved filtering backscatter for input to a retrieval model that was compared against field measures of soil moisture. The second approach involved spatially averaging raw and filtered imagery in an image-based statistical technique to determine the best scale for site-specific soil moisture retrieval. Field soil moisture was measured at 1225 m² sites in three watersheds commensurate with 7 m resolution Radarsat image acquisition. Analysis of speckle reducing block median filters indicated that 5 × 5 filter level was the optimum for watershed averaged estimates of soil moisture. However, median filtering alone did not provide acceptable accuracy for soil moisture retrieval on a site-specific basis. Therefore, spatial averaging of unfiltered and median filtered power values was used to generate backscatter estimates with known confidence for soil moisture retrieval. This combined approach of filtering and averaging was demonstrated at watersheds located in Arizona (AZ), Oklahoma (OK) and Georgia (GA). The optimum ground resolution for AZ, OK and GA study areas was 162 m, 310 m, and 1131 m respectively obtained with unfiltered imagery. This statistical approach does not rely on ground verification of soil moisture for validation and only requires a satellite image and average roughness parameters of the site. When applied at other locations, the resulting optimum ground resolution will depend on the spatial distribution of land surface features that affect radar backscatter. This work offers insight into the accuracy of soil moisture retrieval, and an operational approach to determine the optimal spatial resolution for the required application accuracy.     

一种改进的自适应窗口滤波的SAR图像去噪算法

SAR的广泛应用及其距离、方位上的高分辨率,使其受到人们越来越多的重视。但是SAR图像中的斑点噪声却严重地制约了它的进一步的应用。根据SAR图像的成像过程提出了一种改进的抑制SAR图像中斑点噪声的算法-自适应窗口空间域平滑算法。它根据窗内像素点的统计特征自适应调节窗口大小,并通过门限来决定是否需要改变窗的尺寸,达到在同性质区增大窗口来抑制斑点噪声,同时在异性质区减小窗口以最大限度地保护图像细节的目的。对实际SAR图像的验证,说明它在抑制斑点噪声和保存图像细节信息方面较之原方法有了一定的改进和提高。