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

Guided patch-wise nonlocal SAR despeckling

We propose a new method for SAR image despeckling which leverages information drawn from co-registered optical imagery. Filtering is performed by plain patch-wise nonlocal means, operating exclusively on SAR data. However, the filtering weights are computed by taking into account also the optical guide, which is much cleaner than the SAR data, and hence more discriminative. To avoid injecting optical-domain information into the filtered image, a SAR-domain statistical test is preliminarily performed to reject right away any risky predictor. Experiments on two SAR-optical datasets prove the proposed method to suppress very effectively the speckle, preserving structural details, and without introducing visible filtering artifacts. Overall, the proposed method compares favourably with all state-of-the-art despeckling filters, and also with our own previous optical-guided filter

A Tutorial on Speckle Reduction in Synthetic Aperture Radar Images

Speckle is a granular disturbance, usually modeled as a multiplicative noise, that affects synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images, as well as all coherent images. Over the last three decades, several methods have been proposed for the reduction of speckle, or despeckling, in SAR images. Goal of this paper is making a comprehensive review of despeckling methods since their birth, over thirty years ago, highlighting trends and changing approaches over years. The concept of fully developed speckle is explained. Drawbacks of homomorphic filtering are pointed out. Assets of multiresolution despeckling, as opposite to spatial-domain despeckling, are highlighted. Also advantages of undecimated, or stationary, wavelet transforms over decimated ones are discussed. Bayesian estimators and probability density function (pdf) models in both spatial and multiresolution domains are reviewed. Scale-space varying pdf models, as opposite to scale varying models, are promoted. Promising methods following non-Bayesian approaches, like nonlocal (NL) filtering and total variation (TV) regularization, are reviewed and compared to spatial- and wavelet-domain Bayesian filters. Both established and new trends for assessment of despeckling are presented. A few experiments on simulated data and real COSMO-SkyMed SAR images highlight, on one side the costperformance tradeoff of the different methods, on the other side the effectiveness of solutions purposely designed for SAR heterogeneity and not fully developed speckle. Eventually, upcoming methods based on new concepts of signal processing, like compressive sensing, are foreseen as a new generation of despeckling, after spatial-domain and multiresolution-domain method

Image Restoration for Remote Sensing: Overview and Toolbox

Remote sensing provides valuable information about objects or areas from a distance in either active (e.g., RADAR and LiDAR) or passive (e.g., multispectral and hyperspectral) modes. The quality of data acquired by remotely sensed imaging sensors (both active and passive) is often degraded by a variety of noise types and artifacts. Image restoration, which is a vibrant field of research in the remote sensing community, is the task of recovering the true unknown image from the degraded observed image. Each imaging sensor induces unique noise types and artifacts into the observed image. This fact has led to the expansion of restoration techniques in different paths according to each sensor type. This review paper brings together the advances of image restoration techniques with particular focuses on synthetic aperture radar and hyperspectral images as the most active sub-fields of image restoration in the remote sensing community. We, therefore, provide a comprehensive, discipline-specific starting point for researchers at different levels (i.e., students, researchers, and senior researchers) willing to investigate the vibrant topic of data restoration by supplying sufficient detail and references. Additionally, this review paper accompanies a toolbox to provide a platform to encourage interested students and researchers in the field to further explore the restoration techniques and fast-forward the community. The toolboxes are provided in https://github.com/ImageRestorationToolbox.Comment: This paper is under review in GRS

비가우시안 잡음 영상 복원을 위한 그룹 희소 표현

학위논문(박사)--서울대학교 대학원 :자연과학대학 수리과학부,2020. 2. 강명주.For the image restoration problem, recent variational approaches exploiting nonlocal information of an image have demonstrated significant improvements compared with traditional methods utilizing local features. Hence, we propose two variational models based on the sparse representation of image groups, to recover images with non-Gaussian noise. The proposed models are designed to restore image with Cauchy noise and speckle noise, respectively. To achieve efficient and stable performance, an alternating optimization scheme with a novel initialization technique is used. Experimental results suggest that the proposed methods outperform other methods in terms of both visual perception and numerical indexes.영상 복원 문제에서, 영상의 비국지적인 정보를 활용하는 최근의 다양한 접근 방식은 국지적인 특성을 활용하는 기존 방법과 비교하여 크게 개선되었다. 따라서, 우리는 비가우시안 잡음 영상을 복원하기 위해 영상 그룹 희소 표현에 기반한 두 가지 변분법적 모델을 제안한다. 제안된 모델은 각각 코시 잡음과 스펙클 잡음 영상을 복원하도록 설계되었다. 효율적이고 안정적인 성능을 달성하기 위해, 교대 방향 승수법과 새로운 초기화 기술이 사용된다. 실험 결과는 제안된 방법이 시각적인 인식과 수치적인 지표 모두에서 다른 방법보다 우수함을 나타낸다.1 Introduction 1 2 Preliminaries 5 2.1 Cauchy Noise 5 2.1.1 Introduction 6 2.1.2 Literature Review 7 2.2 Speckle Noise 9 2.2.1 Introduction 10 2.2.2 Literature Review 13 2.3 GSR 15 2.3.1 Group Construction 15 2.3.2 GSR Modeling 16 2.4 ADMM 17 3 Proposed Models 19 3.1 Proposed Model 1: GSRC 19 3.1.1 GSRC Modeling via MAP Estimator 20 3.1.2 Patch Distance for Cauchy Noise 22 3.1.3 The ADMM Algorithm for Solving (3.7) 22 3.1.4 Numerical Experiments 28 3.1.5 Discussion 45 3.2 Proposed Model 2: GSRS 48 3.2.1 GSRS Modeling via MAP Estimator 50 3.2.2 Patch Distance for Speckle Noise 52 3.2.3 The ADMM Algorithm for Solving (3.42) 53 3.2.4 Numerical Experiments 56 3.2.5 Discussion 69 4 Conclusion 74 Abstract (in Korean) 84Docto

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

Improving a new sparse-coding algorithm dedicated to SAR images with a coeffcient of variation map

In this paper, we propose a sparsity-based despeck-ling approach. The first main contribution of this work is the elaboration of a sparse-coding algorithm adapted to the statistics of SAR images. In fact, in most of the sparse-coding algorithms dedicated to SAR data, a logarithmic transform is applied on the data to turn the speckle modeled by a multiplicative noise into an additive noise, then, a Gaussian prior is used. However, using a more suitable prior for SAR data avoids introducing artifacts, as shown in the obtained results. The second main contribution proposed is to evaluate how computing a map predicting the sparsity degree of each patch could bring an improvement compared to a traditional sparse-coding approach with a low-error rate based stopping criterion

On Solving SAR Imaging Inverse Problems Using Non-Convex Regularization with a Cauchy-based Penalty

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery can provide useful information in a multitude of applications, including climate change, environmental monitoring, meteorology, high dimensional mapping, ship monitoring, or planetary exploration. In this paper, we investigate solutions to a number of inverse problems encountered in SAR imaging. We propose a convex proximal splitting method for the optimization of a cost function that includes a non-convex Cauchy-based penalty. The convergence of the overall cost function optimization is ensured through careful selection of model parameters within a forward-backward (FB) algorithm. The performance of the proposed penalty function is evaluated by solving three standard SAR imaging inverse problems, including super-resolution, image formation, and despeckling, as well as ship wake detection for maritime applications. The proposed method is compared to several methods employing classical penalty functions such as total variation ($TV$) and $L_1$ norms, and to the generalized minimax-concave (GMC) penalty. We show that the proposed Cauchy-based penalty function leads to better image reconstruction results when compared to the reference penalty functions for all SAR imaging inverse problems in this paper.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure