Learning a Dilated Residual Network for SAR Image Despeckling

In this paper, to break the limit of the traditional linear models for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image despeckling, we propose a novel deep learning approach by learning a non-linear end-to-end mapping between the noisy and clean SAR images with a dilated residual network (SAR-DRN). SAR-DRN is based on dilated convolutions, which can both enlarge the receptive field and maintain the filter size and layer depth with a lightweight structure. In addition, skip connections and residual learning strategy are added to the despeckling model to maintain the image details and reduce the vanishing gradient problem. Compared with the traditional despeckling methods, the proposed method shows superior performance over the state-of-the-art methods on both quantitative and visual assessments, especially for strong speckle noise.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, 7 table

Deep learning for inverse problems in remote sensing: super-resolution and SAR despeckling

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

A Sparsity-Based InSAR Phase Denoising Algorithm Using Nonlocal Wavelet Shrinkage

An interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) phase denoising algorithm using the local sparsity of wavelet coefficients and nonlocal similarity of grouped blocks was developed. From the Bayesian perspective, the double-l1 norm regularization model that enforces the local and nonlocal sparsity constraints was used. Taking advantages of coefficients of the nonlocal similarity between group blocks for the wavelet shrinkage, the proposed algorithm effectively filtered the phase noise. Applying the method to simulated and acquired InSAR data, we obtained satisfactory results. In comparison, the algorithm outperformed several widely-used InSAR phase denoising approaches in terms of the number of residues, root-mean-square errors and other edge preservation indexes

Scattering Models in Remote Sensing: Application to SAR Despeckling and Sea Target Detection from GNSS-R Imagery

Imaging sensors are an essential tool for the observation of the Earth’ surface and the study of other celestial bodies. The capability to produce radar images of the illuminated surface is strictly related with the complex phenomenology of the radiation-matter interaction. The electromagnetic scattering theory is a well-established and well-assessed topic in electromagnetics. However, its usage in the remote sensing field is not adequately investigated and studied. This Ph.D. Thesis addresses the exploitation of electromagnetic scattering models suitable for natural surfaces in two applications of remotely sensed data, namely despeckling of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery, and the detection of sea targets in delay-Doppler Maps (DDM) acquired from spaceborne Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry (GNSS-R). The first issue was addressed by conceiving, developing, implementing and validating two despeckling algorithms for SAR images. The developed algorithms introduce some a priori information about the electromagnetic behavior of the resolution cell in the despeckling chain and were conceived as a scattering-based version of pre-existing filters, namely the Probabilistic Patch-Based (PPB) and SAR-Block-Matching 3-D (SARBM3D) algorithms. The scattering behavior of the sensed surface is modeled assuming a fractal surface roughness and using the Small Perturbation Method (SPM) to describe the radar cross section (RCS) of the surface. Performances of the proposed algorithms have been assessed using both canonical test (simulated) and actual images acquired from the COSMO\SkyMed constellation. The robustness of the proposed filters against different error sources, such as the scattering behavior of the surface, surface parameters, Digital Elevation Model (DEM) resolution and the SAR image-DEM coregistration step, has been evaluated via an experimental sensitivity analysis. The problem of detecting sea targets from GNSS-R data in near real-time has been investigated by analyzing the revisit time achieved by constellations of GNSS-R instruments. A statistical analysis of the global revisit time has been performed by means of mission simulation, in which three realistic scenario have been defined. Time requirements for near real-time ship detection purposes are shown to be fulfilled in multi-GNSS constellation scenarios. A four-step sea target has been developed. The detector is a Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) algorithm and is based on the suppression of the sea clutter contribution, modeled via the Geometrical Optics (GO) approach. Performance assessment is performed by deriving the Receiver Operating Curves (ROC) of the detector. Finally, the proposed sea target detection algorithm has been tested using actual UK TechDemoSat-1 data

Extraction d'informations de changement à partir des séries temporelles d'images radar à synthèse d'ouverture

A large number of successfully launched and operated Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites has regularly provided multitemporal SAR and polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) images with high and very high spatial resolution over immense areas of the Earth surface. SAR system is appropriate for monitoring tasks thanks to the advantage of operating in all-time and all-weather conditions. With multitemporal data, both spatial and temporal information can simultaneously be exploited to improve the results of researche works. Change detection of specific features within a certain time interval has to deal with a complex processing of SAR data and the so-called speckle which affects the backscattered signal as multiplicative noise.The aim of this thesis is to provide a methodology for simplifying the analysis of multitemporal SAR data. Such methodology can benefit from the advantages of repetitive SAR acquisitions and be able to process different kinds of SAR data (i.e. single, multipolarization SAR, etc.) for various applications. In this thesis, we first propose a general framework based on a spatio-temporal information matrix called emph{Change Detection Matrix} (CDM). This matrix contains temporal neighborhoods which are adaptive to changed and unchanged areas thanks to similarity cross tests. Then, the proposed method is used to perform three different tasks:1) multitemporal change detection with different kinds of changes, which allows the combination of multitemporal pair-wise change maps to improve the performance of change detection result;2) analysis of change dynamics in the observed area, which allows the investigation of temporal evolution of objects of interest;3) nonlocal temporal mean filtering of SAR/PolSAR image time series, which allows us to avoid smoothing change information in the time series during the filtering process.In order to illustrate the relevancy of the proposed method, the experimental works of the thesis is performed on four datasets over two test-sites: Chamonix Mont-Blanc, France and Merapi volcano, Indonesia, with different types of changes (i.e., seasonal evolution, glaciers, volcanic eruption, etc.). Observations of these test-sites are performed on four SAR images time series from single polarization to full polarization, from medium to high, very high spatial resolution: Sentinel-1, ALOS-PALSAR, RADARSAT-2 and TerraSAR-X time series.La réussite du lancement d'un grand nombre des satellites Radar à Synthèse d'Ouverture (RSO - SAR) de nouvelle génération a fourni régulièrement des images SAR et SAR polarimétrique (PolSAR) multitemporelles à haute et très haute résolution spatiale sur de larges régions de la surface de la Terre. Le système SAR est approprié pour des tâches de surveillance continue ou il offre l'avantage d'être indépendant de l'éclairement solaire et de la couverture nuageuse. Avec des données multitemporelles, l'information spatiale et temporelle peut être exploitée simultanément pour rendre plus concise, l'extraction d'information à partir des données. La détection de changement de structures spécifiques dans un certain intervalle de temps nécessite un traitement complexe des données SAR et la présence du chatoiement (speckle) qui affecte la rétrodiffusion comme un bruit multiplicatif. Le but de cette thèse est de fournir une méthodologie pour simplifier l'analyse des données multitemporelles SAR. Cette méthodologie doit bénéficier des avantages d'acquisitions SAR répétitives et être capable de traiter différents types de données SAR (images SAR mono-, multi- composantes, etc.) pour diverses applications. Au cours de cette thèse, nous proposons tout d'abord une méthode générale basée sur une matrice d'information spatio-temporelle appelée Matrice de détection de changement (CDM). Cette matrice contient des informations de changements obtenus à partir de tests croisés de similarité sur des voisinages adaptatifs. La méthode proposée est ensuite exploitée pour réaliser trois tâches différentes: 1) la détection de changement multitemporel avec différents types de changements, ce qui permet la combinaison des cartes de changement entre des paires d'images pour améliorer la performance de résultat de détection de changement; 2) l'analyse de la dynamicité de changement de la zone observée, ce qui permet l'étude de l'évolution temporelle des objets d'intérêt; 3) le filtrage nonlocal temporel des séries temporelles d'images SAR/PolSAR, ce qui permet d'éviter le lissage des informations de changement dans des séries pendant le processus de filtrage.Afin d'illustrer la pertinence de la méthode proposée, la partie expérimentale de la thèse est effectuée sur deux sites d'étude: Chamonix Mont-Blanc, France et le volcan Merapi, Indonésie, avec différents types de changements (i.e. évolution saisonnière, glaciers, éruption volcanique, etc.). Les observations de ces sites d'étude sont acquises sur quatre séries temporelles d'images SAR monocomposantes et multicomposantes de moyenne à haute et très haute résolution: des séries temporelles d'images Sentinel-1, ALOS-PALSAR, RADARSAT-2 et TerraSAR-X

Unsupervised Classification of Polarimetric SAR Images via Riemannian Sparse Coding

Unsupervised classification plays an important role in understanding polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) images. One of the typical representations of PolSAR data is in the form of Hermitian positive definite (HPD) covariance matrices. Most algorithms for unsupervised classification using this representation either use statistical distribution models or adopt polarimetric target decompositions. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised classification method by introducing a sparsity-based similarity measure on HPD matrices. Specifically, we first use a novel Riemannian sparse coding scheme for representing each HPD covariance matrix as sparse linear combinations of other HPD matrices, where the sparse reconstruction loss is defined by the Riemannian geodesic distance between HPD matrices. The coefficient vectors generated by this step reflect the neighborhood structure of HPD matrices embedded in the Euclidean space and hence can be used to define a similarity measure. We apply the scheme for PolSAR data, in which we first oversegment the images into superpixels, followed by representing each superpixel by an HPD matrix. These HPD matrices are then sparse coded, and the resulting sparse coefficient vectors are then clustered by spectral clustering using the neighborhood matrix generated by our similarity measure. The experimental results on different fully PolSAR images demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed classification approach against the state-of-the-art approachesThis work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61331016 and Grant 61271401 and in part by the National Key Basic Research and Development Program of China under Contract 2013CB733404. The work of A. Cherian was supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision under Project CE140100016.

Thickness estimation, automated classification and novelty detection in ultrasound images of the plantar fascia tissues

The plantar fascia (PF) tissue plays an important role in the movement and the stability of the foot during walking and running. Thus it is possible for the overuse and the associated medical problems to cause injuries and some severe common diseases. Ultrasound (US) imaging offers significant potential in diagnosis of PF injuries and monitoring treatments. Despite the advantages of US, the generated PF images are difficult to interpret during medical assessment. This is partly due to the size and position of the PF in relation to the adjacent tissues. This limits the use of US in clinical practice and therefore impacts on patient services for what is a common problem and a major cause of foot pain and discomfort. It is therefore a requirement to devise an automated system that allows better and easier interpretation of PF US images during diagnosis. This study is concerned with developing a computer-based system using a combination of medical image processing techniques whereby different PF US images can be visually improved, segmented, analysed and classified as normal or abnormal, so as to provide more information to the doctors and the clinical treatment department for early diagnosis and the detection of the PF associated medical problems. More specifically, this study is required to investigate the possibility of a proposed model for localizing and estimating the PF thickness a cross three different sections (rearfoot, midfoot and forefoot) using a supervised ANN segmentation technique. The segmentation method uses RBF artificial neural network module in order to classify small overlapping patches into PF and non-PF tissue. Feature selection technique was performed as a post-processing step for feature extraction to reduce the number of the extracted features. Then the trained RBF-ANN is used to segment the desired PF region. The PF thickness was calculated using two different methods: distance transformation and a proposed area-length calculation algorithm. Additionally, different machine learning approaches were investigated and applied to the segmented PF region in order to distinguish between symptomatic and asymptomatic PF subjects using the best normalized and selected feature set. This aims to facilitate the characterization and the classification of the PF area for the identification of patients with inferior heel pain at risk of plantar fasciitis. Finally, a novelty detection framework for detecting the symptomatic PF samples (with plantar fasciitis disorder) using only asymptomatic samples is proposed. This model implies the following: feature analysis, building a normality model by training the one-class SVDD classifier using only asymptomatic PF training datasets, and computing novelty scores using the trained SVDD classifier, training and testing asymptomatic datasets, and testing symptomatic datasets of the PF dataset. The performance evaluation results showed that the proposed approaches used in this study obtained favourable results compared to other methods reported in the literature

Quantitative Estimation of Surface Soil Moisture in Agricultural Landscapes using Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging at Different Frequencies and Polarizations

Soil moisture and its distribution in space and time plays an important role in the surface energy balance at the soil-atmosphere interface. It is a key variable influencing the partitioning of solar energy into latent and sensible heat flux as well as the partitioning of precipitation into runoff and percolation. Due to their large spatial variability, estimation of spatial patterns of soil moisture from field measurements is difficult and not feasible for large scale analyses. In the past decades, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) remote sensing has proven its potential to quantitatively estimate near surface soil moisture at high spatial resolutions. Since the knowledge of the basic SAR concepts is important to understand the impact of different natural terrain features on the quantitative estimation of soil moisture and other surface parameters, the fundamental principles of synthetic aperture radar imaging are discussed. Also the two spaceborne SAR missions whose data was used in this study, the ENVISAT of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the ALOS of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), are introduced. Subsequently, the two essential surface properties in the field of radar remote sensing, surface soil moisture and surface roughness are defined, and the established methods of their measurement are described. The in situ data used in this study, as well as the research area, the River Rur catchment, with the individual test sites where the data was collected between 2007 and 2010, are specified. On this basis, the important scattering theories in radar polarimetry are discussed and their application is demonstrated using novel polarimetric ALOS/PALSAR data. A critical review of different classical approaches to invert soil moisture from SAR imaging is provided. Five prevalent models have been chosen with the aim to provide an overview of the evolution of ideas and techniques in the field of soil moisture estimation from active microwave data. As the core of this work, a new semi-empirical model for the inversion of surface soil moisture from dual polarimetric L-band SAR data is introduced. This novel approach utilizes advanced polarimetric decomposition techniques to correct for the disturbing effects from surface roughness and vegetation on the soil moisture retrieval without the use of a priori knowledge. The land use specific algorithms for bare soil, grassland, sugar beet, and winter wheat allow quantitative estimations with accuracies in the order of 4 Vol.-%. Application of remotely sensed soil moisture patterns is demonstrated on the basis of mesoscale SAR data by investigating the variability of soil moisture patterns at different spatial scales ranging from field scale to catchment scale. The results show that the variability of surface soil moisture decreases with increasing wetness states at all scales. Finally, the conclusions from this dissertational research are summarized and future perspectives on how to extend the proposed model by means of improved ground based measurements and upcoming advances in sensor technology are discussed. The results obtained in this thesis lead to the conclusion that state-of-the-art spaceborne dual polarimetric L-band SAR systems are not only suitable to accurately retrieve surface soil moisture contents of bare as well as of vegetated agricultural fields and grassland, but for the first time also allow investigating within-field spatial heterogeneities from space

Advanced Techniques based on Mathematical Morphology for the Analysis of Remote Sensing Images

Remote sensing optical images of very high geometrical resolution can provide a precise and detailed representation of the surveyed scene. Thus, the spatial information contained in these images is fundamental for any application requiring the analysis of the image. However, modeling the spatial information is not a trivial task. We addressed this problem by using operators defined in the mathematical morphology framework in order to extract spatial features from the image. In this thesis novel techniques based on mathematical morphology are presented and investigated for the analysis of remote sensing optical images addressing different applications. Attribute Profiles (APs) are proposed as a novel generalization based on attribute filters of the Morphological Profile operator. Attribute filters are connected operators which can process an image by removing flat zones according to a given criterion. They are flexible operators since they can transform an image according to many different attributes (e.g., geometrical, textural and spectral). Furthermore, Extended Attribute Profiles (EAPs), a generalization of APs, are presented for the analysis of hyperspectral images. The EAPs are employed for including spatial features in the thematic classification of hyperspectral images. Two techniques dealing with EAPs and dimensionality reduction transformations are proposed and applied in image classification. In greater detail, one of the techniques is based on Independent Component Analysis and the other one deals with feature extraction techniques. Moreover, a technique based on APs for extracting features for the detection of buildings in a scene is investigated. Approaches that process an image by considering both bright and dark components of a scene are investigated. In particular, the effect of applying attribute filters in an alternating sequential setting is investigated. Furthermore, the concept of Self-Dual Attribute Profile (SDAP) is introduced. SDAPs are APs built on an inclusion tree instead of a min- and max-tree, providing an operator that performs a multilevel filtering of both the bright and dark components of an image. Techniques developed for applications different from image classification are also considered. In greater detail, a general approach for image simplification based on attribute filters is proposed. Finally, two change detection techniques are developed. The experimental analysis performed with the novel techniques developed in this thesis demonstrates an improvement in terms of accuracies in different fields of application when compared to other state of the art methods