PolSAR ship detection based on the contrast enhancement of polarimetric scattering differences

The ship detection in polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) mode is a hot topic in recent years, because of the diversity of polarimetric scattering mechanisms between ship targets and sea clutter. To improve the detection performance of ship targets, this paper mainly develops the ship detection method based on the contrast enhancement utilizing the polarimetric scattering difference. The algorithm first enhances the target signal utilizing the scattering difference of the polarimetric coherency matrix between ship targets and sea clutter, and then a simple threshold is applied to distinguish the ship targets from the sea clutter. Finally, real PolSAR datasets recorded by AirSAR system are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed detection method. Compared with other detection methods, experimental results indicate that the proposed method can effectively improve the detection performance of ship targets.     

Fully Polarimetric SAR Ship Detection based onPCDM Shannon Entropy#br#

Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar（PolSAR）data contains rich polarization information about the scattering properties of ground objects,having beenwidely used in maritime monitoring and objects detection.The polarization reaction differences between ship targets and sea clutters are analyzed.A ship detection method using the Shannon entropy of the Polarimetric Covariance Difference Matrix (PCDM) is proposed in this paper,which is applied to fully polarimetric SAR images.To enhance the contrast between the ship targets and sea background,the PCDM is generated by calculating the elemental differences between the polarimetric covariance matrix at each pixel and its neighbors.Then the Shannon entropy of SAR images are extracted on the basis of the Shannon entropy calculation formula,and the character difference between the ships and background in the Shannon entropy map is presented for ship detection.The false alarms in the detection result caused by the azimuth ambiguities are removed,based on the displacement distance and energy ratio relationship,between the target and azimuth ambiguity.The Radarsat\|2 Fine Quad data and the Chinese GF\|3 Quad\|Polarimetric Stripmap Ⅰ data are used,to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method,and the SPAN method,HV channel image and polarimetric whitening filter (PWF) method are applied for comparison.The detection and comparison results indicate that the proposed method is able to effectively enhance the ship\|sea contrast,and has higher detection accuracy.     

Feature selection and weighted SVM classifier-based ship detection in PolSAR imagery

Target decomposition is an important method for ship detection in polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. Parameters such as the polarization entropy and alpha angle deduced from the coherency matrix eigenvalue decomposition capture the differences between the target and background from different views separately. However, under the conditions of a relatively high resolution and a rough sea, the contrast between ship and sea reduces in the aforementioned space. Based on the analyses of target decomposition theory and the target’s scattering mechanism, multi-polarization parameters can be used to characterize different scattering behaviours of the ship target and sea clutter. Moreover, each parameter has its own diverse significance in the practical detection problem. This article proposes a feature selection and weighted support vector machine (FSWSVM) classifier-based algorithm to detect ships in polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) imagery. First, the method constructs a feature vector that consists of multi-polarization parameters. Then, different polarization parameters are refined and weighted according to their significance in the support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Finally, ships are classified from the sea background and other false alarms by the classifier. The validation results on National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA/JPL) airborne synthetic aperture radar (AIRSAR) and Radarsat-2 quad polarimetric data illustrate that the method detects ship targets more precisely and reduces false alarms effectively.     

PolSAR image compression based on online sparse K-SVD dictionary learning

we present a novel polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) image compression scheme. PolSAR data contains lots of similar redundancies in single-channel and massively correlation between polarimetric channels. So these features make it difficult to represent PolSAR data efficiently. In this paper, discrete cosine transform (DCT) is adopted to remove redundancies between polarimetric channels, simple but quite efficient in improving compressibility. Sparse K-singular value decomposition (K-SVD) dictionary learning algorithm is utilized to remove redundancies within each channel image. Double sparsity scheme will be able to achieve fast convergence and low representation error by using a small number of sparsity dictionary elements, which is beneficial for the task of PolSAR image compression. Experimental results demonstrate that both numerical evaluation indicators and visual effect of reconstructed images outperform other methods, such as SPIHT, JPEG2000, and offline method.     

基于张量空间中的均值漂移聚类的极化SAR图像分割

提出了一种基于均值漂移(Mean Shift, MS)聚类的全极化合成孔径雷达(Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar, PolSAR)图像无监督分割算法. 已有的工作在将MS算法应用于全PolSAR图像分割时, 仅使用每个像素点的极化总功率值作为该像素点的特征值, 没有充分利用极化协方差矩阵或者相干矩阵所包含的完整的极化散射信息. 但是如果直接利用每个像素点的极化协方差矩阵作为特征向量, 则这些特征向量构成的空间不再是一个欧氏空间, 而原始的MS算法是定义在欧氏空间中的. 因此, 本文首先将每一个像素点的厄尔米特正定极化协方差矩阵也称为一个张量, 而且使用黎曼流形来描述该张量空间. 然后, 原始的MS算法被扩展到该张量空间中. 直接扩展得到的算法每一步具有明确的含义, 但是运算复杂度较高. 所以本文又进一步对该算法进行了简化, 从而得到了一个实用的分割算法. 通过使用真实的全PolSAR数据以及仿真数据进行实验, 结果验证了新方法的有效性.     

视觉注意机制下结合语义特征的行人检测

目的 为研究多场景下的行人检测,提出一种视觉注意机制下基于语义特征的行人检测方法。方法 首先,在初级视觉特征基础上,结合行人肤色的语义特征,通过将自下而上的数据驱动型视觉注意与自上而下的任务驱动型视觉注意有机结合,建立空域静态视觉注意模型;然后,结合运动信息的语义特征,采用运动矢量熵值计算运动显著性,建立时域动态视觉注意模型;在此基础上,以特征权重融合的方式,构建时空域融合的视觉注意模型,由此得到视觉显著图,并通过视觉注意焦点的选择完成行人检测。结果 选用标准库和实拍视频,在Matlab R2012a平台上,进行实验验证。与其他视觉注意模型进行对比仿真,本文方法具有良好的行人检测效果,在实验视频上的行人检测正确率达93%。结论 本文方法在不同的场景下具有良好的鲁棒性能,能够用于提高现有视频监控系统的智能化性能。     

LBP特征分类的极化SAR图像机场跑道检测

目的 在极化合成孔径雷达（synthetic aperture radar，SAR）图像中常用直线检测进行机场跑道的识别，但是河流、道路等与机场跑道具有相似直线的地物容易对检测结果造成干扰，出现检测目标难定位、目标模糊、多虚警等问题。为此，本文设计了一种利用目标散射特性结合局部二值模式（local binary patterns，LBP）特征分类的极化SAR图像机场跑道区域检测方法，采用LBP特征对极化SAR图像进行有监督的分类来提取真实的机场区域。方法 首先利用异化散射功率对极化SAR图像进行阈值分割，然后通过形态学处理得到疑似机场跑道区域，同时构建机场跑道和非机场跑道两类训练样本，并提取、统计样本的LBP特征，形成直方图，得到特征向量训练支持向量机（support vector machine，SVM）二分类器，其中SVM二分类器采用了径向基函数（radial basis function，RBF）核函数；接着对疑似机场跑道区域构建LBP特征，送入SVM二分类器中分类，对机场跑道进行检测识别，最终得到真实的机场跑道区域。结果 利用UAVSAR（uninhabited aerial vehicle synthetic aperture radar）系统采集的7幅极化SAR图像数据进行实验检测，并选取基于几何特征辨识跑道的两种算法进行对比，3种方法均有效检测出了7幅场景中的真实跑道，但是本文方法在7幅数据中总的虚警和漏警个数均为1，而两种对比算法中的虚警个数分别为2和11、漏警个数分别为8和1。结论 本文方法不仅能有效检测出机场跑道区域，且检测效果更好，计算量较小，虚警和漏警率低，效率更高。     

Stacked auto-encoder for classification of polarimetric SAR images based on scattering energy

This paper proposes a new algorithm, for polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) classification, based on a stacked auto-encoder and scattering energy. Previous approaches to PolSAR classification predominantly consider only the single pixel of distribution of the polarimetric data and scattering characteristics, and ignore other kinds of image features like the relationship of the local pixels. Besides, because of the complexities of PolSAR data, it is difficult to compute the derivatives that are needed for back-propagation in deep-learning classifiers. To overcome these difficulties, we propose a new approach that combines the scattering power and stacks sparse auto-encoder (Scattering SSAE) for PolSAR classification. Firstly, orientation compensation is used to compensate the polarization orientation angle, reducing the impact of polarimetric angle noise. Secondly, Freeman-Durden decomposition is adopted to extract three basic scattering powers: surface, double bounce and volume. Each PolSAR image pixel is transformed into these scattering powers, yielding a new kind of feature from the PolSAR data. Finally, using the three kinds of scattering power as inputs, we combine local spatial information using a patch-based approach, and use a deep learning architecture to achieve classification. We compare our method against several other state-of-the-art methods using ground-truthed test-data, and show that the Scattering SSAE method achieves higher accuracy than other methods on most categories.     

A novel super-resolution method of PolSAR images based on target decomposition and polarimetric spatial correlation

The polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) is becoming more and more popular in remote-sensing research areas. However, due to system limitations, such as bandwidth of the signal and the physical dimension of antennas, the resolution of PolSAR images cannot be compared with those of optical remote-sensing images. Super-resolution processing of PolSAR images is usually desired for PolSAR image applications, such as image interpretation and target detection. Usually, in a PolSAR image, each resolution contains several different scattering mechanisms. If these mechanisms can be allocated to different parts within one resolution cell, details of the images can be enhanced, which that means the resolution of the images is improved. In this article, a novel super-resolution algorithm for PolSAR images is proposed, in which polarimetric target decomposition and polarimetric spatial correlation are both taken into consideration. The super-resolution method, based on polarimetric spatial correlation (SRPSC), can make full use of the polarimetric spatial correlation to allocate different scattering mechanisms of PolSAR images. The advantage of SRPSC is that the phase information can be preserved in the processed PolSAR images. The proposed methods are demonstrated with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Experimental SAR (E-SAR) L-band full polarized images of the Oberpfaffenhofen Test Site Area in Germany, obtained on 30 September 2000. The experimental results of the SRPSC confirms the effectiveness of the proposed methods.¹     

A novel algorithm for land use and land cover classification using RADARSAT-2 polarimetric SAR data

This study proposes a new four-component algorithm for land use and land cover (LULC) classification using RADARSAT-2 polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) data. These four components are polarimetric decomposition, PolSAR interferometry, object-oriented image analysis, and decision tree algorithms. First, polarimetric decomposition can be used to support the classification of PolSAR data. It is aimed at extracting polarimetric parameters related to the physical scattering mechanisms of the observed objects. Second, PolSAR interferometry is used to extract polarimetric interferometric information to support LULC classification. Third, the main purposes of object-oriented image analysis are delineating image objects, as well as extracting various textural and spatial features from image objects to improve classification accuracy. Finally, a decision tree algorithm provides an efficient way to select features and implement classification. A comparison between the proposed method and the Wishart supervised classification which is based on the coherency matrix was made to test the performance of the proposed method. The overall accuracy of the proposed method was 86.64%, whereas that of the Wishart supervised classification was 69.66%. The kappa value of the proposed method was 0.84, much higher than that of the Wishart supervised classification, which exhibited a kappa value of 0.65. The results indicate that the proposed method exhibits much better performance than the Wishart supervised classification for LULC classification. Further investigation was carried out on the respective contribution of the four components to LULC classification using RADARSAT-2 PolSAR data, and it indicates that all the four components have important contribution to the classification. Polarimetric information has significant implications for identifying different vegetation types and distinguishing between vegetation and urban/built-up. The polarimetric interferometric information extracted from repeat-pass RADARSAT-2 images is important in reducing the confusion between urban/built-up and vegetation and that between barren/sparsely vegetated land and vegetation. Object-oriented image analysis is very helpful in reducing the effect of speckle in PolSAR images by implementing classification based on image objects, and the textural information extracted from image objects is helpful in distinguishing between water and lawn. The decision tree algorithm can achieve higher classification accuracy than the nearest neighbor classification implemented using Definiens Developer 7.0, and the accuracy of the decision tree algorithm is similar with that of the support vector classification which is implemented based on the features selected using genetic algorithms. Compared with the nearest neighbor and support vector classification, the decision tree algorithm is more efficient to select features and implement classification. Furthermore, the decision tree algorithm can provide clear classification rules that can be easily interpreted based on the physical meaning of the features used in the classification. This can provide physical insight for LULC classification using PolSAR data.     

Crop discrimination based on polarimetric correlation coefficients optimization for PolSAR data

Crop discrimination is a necessary step for most agricultural monitoring systems. Radar polarimetric responses from various crops strongly relate to the types and orientations of the local scatterers, which makes the discrimination still difficult using the polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) technique. This work provides a new approach by investigating and utilizing the characteristics of polarimetric correlation coefficients in the rotation domain along the radar line of sight. The theoretical basis lies in that polarimetric correlation coefficients can reflect the different responses and can be enhanced at different levels for various land-cover types with suitable rotation angles in the rotation domain. In this vein, a polarimetric correlation coefficient optimization framework is established and new polarimetric features are extracted therein. Demonstration with multi-frequency (P-, L-, and C-bands) airborne synthetic aperture radar (AIRSAR) PolSAR data over crop areas validates that polarimetric correlation coefficients are crop dependent and the optimized polarimetric correlation coefficient parameters can better discriminate them. Then, a crop discrimination scheme is proposed using the derived polarimetric features. A flow chart for the optimal discrimination feature set selection and determination is provided and is validated by the real data with seven typical crop types. All these crop types are successfully discriminated for the P- and L-band data, whereas only two types of crops are slightly overlapped in the feature space for the C-band data. Experimental studies demonstrate the efficiency and potential of the established methodology.     

结合编码-解码网络和条件随机场的全极化合成孔径雷达土地覆盖分类

针对多极化合成孔径雷达影像地物分类特征表征性较弱及全卷积网络分类精度较低的问题,文中提出结合编码-解码网络(E-D-Net)和条件随机场(CRF)的全极化合成孔径雷达(SAR)土地覆盖分类算法.首先,利用Freeman分解和Pauli分解建模全极化SAR影像,提取各分解对应的散射特征.再借鉴语义分割网络模型的建模思想和多尺度卷积单元构建对称网络模型,将多尺度非对称卷积单元嵌入中层,设计E-D-Net网络模型.通过E-D-Net网络模型对PolSAR影像Freeman分解散射特征进行多层自主学习,获得初始分类结果.最后,利用全连接CRF结合Pauli相干分解伪彩色图信息,对初始分类结果再进行降噪和平滑优化,得到最终分类结果.在两地区PolSAR影像上的实验验证文中算法的有效性和可行性.     

基于监督非相干字典学习的极化SAR图像舰船目标检测

提出了一种结构化非相干字典学习算法 (Structured incoherent dictionary learning, SIDL),并将该方法应用于极化SAR (Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar, PoLSAR)图像舰船目标检测. 在字典学习阶段,构建了一个新的目标函数,为了降低子字典对交叉样本的稀疏表示能力, 将子字典对交叉样本的重构能量约束及子字典互相干性约束加入到字典学习目标函数中. 通过这两个约束, 降低了子字典对交叉样本的表示能力,目标和杂波的极化特征矢量在学习获得的字典下具有良好的区分特性. 该方法不依赖于目标后向散射能量,只利用学习获得的极化字典,根据测试样本在极化字典下的稀疏表示进行目标的检测. 实验采用RADARSAT-2数据进行了验证,对比实验结果表明,本文提出的方法可以更好地抑制杂波,对弱小目标实现检测,获得了更好的检测效果.     

高阶条件随机场引导的多分支极化SAR图像分类

目的 针对极化合成孔径雷达（polarimetric synthetic aperture radar,PolSAR）小样本分类问题,基于充分挖掘有限样本的极化、空间特征考虑,提出一种由高阶条件随机场（conditional random field,CRF）引导的多分支分类网络模型。方法 利用Yamaguchi非相干目标分解方法,构建每个像素的极化特征向量。设计了由高阶CRF能量函数引导的多卷积分支特征提取网络,将像素点极化特征向量作为输入,分别提取像素点的像素特征、邻域特征和位置特征信息。将以上特征进行加和融合,并输入到softmax分类器中得到预分类结果。利用超像素方法对预分类结果图进行进一步修正和调优,平滑相邻像素之间的特异性和相似性。结果 采用1%的采样率对两组真实的极化SAR数据进行测试。同时,为了更好地模拟实际应用中训练样本位置分布不均匀的情况,考虑了空间不相交采样方法作为对比实验。综合两种采样策略的实验结果表明,相较于只利用像素级特征或简单利用空间特征的方法,本文方法总分类精度平均提升7%～10%,不同地物类别的分类精准度均在90%以上,运行速度相比于支持向量机（support vector machine,SVM）提高了2.5倍以上。结论 通过构建高阶CRF引导的卷积神经网络,将像素特征信息、同质区域特征和地理位置信息进行融合,有效建立了像素级和对象级数据之间的尺度关联,进一步扩充了像素点之间的空间依赖性,提取到了更强大更准确的表征特征,显著提高了标记样本数量较少情况下的卷积网络模型的分类性能,进一步保证了地物目标散射机制表征的全面性和可靠性。     

深度置信网络在极化SAR图像分类中的应用

目的 深度置信网络能够从数据中自动学习、提取特征,在特征学习方面具有突出优势。极化SAR图像分类中存在海量特征利用率低、特征选取主观性强的问题。为了解决这一问题,提出一种基于深度置信网络的极化SAR图像分类方法。方法 首先进行海量分类特征提取,获得极化类、辐射类、空间类和子孔径类四类特征构成的特征集;然后在特征集基础上选取样本并构建特征矢量,用以输入到深度置信网络模型之中;最后利用深度置信网络的方法对海量分类特征进行逐层学习抽象,获得有效的分类特征进行分类。结果 采用AIRSAR数据进行实验,分类结果精度达到91.06%。通过与经典Wishart监督分类、逻辑回归分类方法对比,表现了深度置信网络方法在特征学习方面的突出优势,验证了方法的适用性。结论 针对极化SAR图像海量特征的选取与利用,提出了一种新的分类方法,为极化SAR图像分类提供了一种新思路,为深度置信网络获得更广泛地应用进行有益的探索和尝试。     

Similarity-enhanced target detection algorithm using polarimetric SAR images

Target detection and analysis using polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) images are currently of great interest in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) applications. For a complex target, the scattering characteristics are determined by different independent sub-scatterers and their interaction; therefore, the scattering characteristics should be described by a statistical method due to randomness and depolarization. Furthermore, the inherent speckle in SAR data must be reduced by spatial averaging at the expense of loss of spatial resolution. The polarimetric similarity parameter (PSP) is an effective parameter to analyse target characteristics. In order to describe a complex distributed target, two new methods for calculating PSP are proposed, namely Stokes matrix-based PSP (S-PSP) and multiple PolSAR similarity parameter (MPSP). The characteristics of a target can be described and extracted on the basis of the polarimetric similarity, and then the similarity-enhanced target detection methods using S-PSP and MPSP are implemented and demonstrated with German Aerospace Centre (DLR) experimental SAR L-band multiple temporal PolSAR images of Oberpfaffenhofen test site (DE), Germany. The results confirmed that the proposed methods are effective for detection and analysis of buildings in urban areas.     

改进的遗传算法用于极化合成孔径雷达影像非监督分类

H/α-Wishart分类方法是目前常用且较为有效的极化SAR影像分类方法,但其分类精度还有待改善。研究一种基于遗传算法的极化SAR影像的分类方法,该方法根据极化SAR影像Cloude特征分解的特征值,采用H/α平面进行初分类,然后采用遗传算法迭代进行再次分类。针对遗传算法“早熟”和收敛速度慢的问题,结合H/α平面图对遗传算法的变异算子进行了改进,以利用极化散射机理缩小变异范围,改善算法收敛速度。采用NASA-JPL实验室的极化SAR数据以及中国电子科技集团38研究X波段原型样机的高分辨率极化SAR数据进行实验,结果表明:该方法极化SAR影像分类精度优于H/α-Wishart分类方法。     

基于深度学习和层次语义模型的极化SAR分类

针对复杂场景的极化合成孔径雷达（Synthetic aperture radar,SAR）图像,堆叠自编码模型能够自动学习高层特性,有效表示城区、森林等复杂地物的结构,然而,却难以保持图像的边界和细节.为了克服该缺点,本文结合深度自编码器和极化层次语义模型（Polarimetric hierarchical semantic model,PHSM）,提出了新的无监督的极化SAR图像分类算法.该方法根据极化层次语义模型,将复杂的极化SAR图像划分为聚集、匀质和结构三大区域.对聚集区域,采用堆叠自编码模型进行高层特征表示,并构造字典得到稀疏特征进行分类;对匀质区域,采用层次模型进行分类;对于结构区域,进行线目标保留和边界定位.实验结果表明,该算法通过不同的分类策略优势互补,能够得到区域一致性好且边界保持的分类结果.     

Enhanced edge detection for polarimetric SAR images using a directional span-driven adaptive window

ABSTRACT

Automatic edge detection for polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) images plays a fundamental role in various PolSAR applications. The classic methods apply the fixed-shape windows to detect the edges, whereas their performance is limited in heterogeneous areas. This article presents an enhanced edge detection method for PolSAR data based on the directional span-driven adaptive (DSDA) window. The DSDA window has variable sizes and flexible shapes, and is constructed by adaptively selecting samples that follow the same statistical distribution. Therefore, it can overcome the limitation of classic fixed-shape windows. To obtain refined and reliable edge detection results in heterogeneous urban areas, we adopt the spherically invariant random vector (SIRV) product model since the complex Wishart distribution is often not met. In addition, a span ratio is combined with the SIRV distance to highlight the dissimilarity measure and to improve the robustness of the proposed method. The simulated PolSAR data and three real data sets from experimental synthetic aperture radar, electromagnetics institute synthetic aperture radar, and Radarsat-2 systems are used to validate the performance of the enhanced edge detector. Both quantitative evaluation and visual presentation of the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method and its superiority over the classic edge detectors.     

MSMD: maximum separability and minimum dependency feature selection for cropland classification from optical and radar data

Cropland classification using optical and full polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) images is a topic of considerable interest in the remote-sensing community. These two data sources can provide a diverse set of temporal, spectral, textural and polarimetric features which can be invaluable for cropland classification. However, some optical features or some radar features may have a relatively high correlation with other features. Hence, it seems to be necessary to choose the optimum features in order to reduce the dimensions of the data and to improve cropland classification accuracy. This article proposes a strategic feature selection method from a feature set of bitemporal RapidEye and Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle synthetic aperture radar (UAVSAR) images. The proposed method is designed to select the most relevant features and to remove redundant features based on the two concepts of separability and dependency. The proposed method is therefore referred to as maximum separability and minimum dependency (MSMD). For evaluating efficiency, MSMD and some well-known filter and wrapper feature selection methods are compared using a random forest classifier. Experimental tests confirmed that the classification results obtained from the MSMD feature selection method were more accurate than those achieved by filter methods. Moreover, they had an accuracy comparable to that of the results from the wrapper method. Furthermore, with regard to running time, MSMD operated as fast as the filter methods. It had a straightforward structure compared to the wrapper method, and as a result was faster than this method.