Enhanced Speckle Filters For Sonar Images Using Stationary Wavelets And Hybrid Inter- And Intra Scale Wavelet Coefficient Dependency

The quality of Sonar images are often reduced by the presence of speckle noise. The presence of speckle noise leads to incorrect analysis and has to be handled carefully. In this paper, an improved non-parametric statistical wavelet denoising method is presented. The algorithm uses a stationary wavelet transformation to derive the wavelet coefficients, from which edge and non-edge wavelet coefficients are identified. Further to improve the time complexity, only homogenous regions with respect to coefficients of neighbors are considered. This method uses an ant colony classification technique. A hybrid method that exploits both inter-scale and intra-scale dependencies between wavelet coefficients is also proposed. The experimental results show that the proposed method is efficient in terms of reduction in speckle noise and speed and can be efficiently used by various sonar imaging systems

SONAR Images Denoising

International audienc

Wavelet based similarity measurement algorithm for seafloor morphology

Thesis (S.M. in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering and S.M. in Mechanical Engineering)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-73).The recent expansion of systematic seafloor exploration programs such as geophysical research, seafloor mapping, search and survey, resource assessment and other scientific, commercial and military applications has created a need for rapid and robust methods of processing seafloor imagery. Given the existence of a large library of seafloor images, a fast automated image classifier algorithm is needed to determine changes in seabed morphology over time. The focus of this work is the development of a robust Similarity Measurement (SM) algorithm to address the above problem. Our work uses a side-scan sonar image library for experimentation and testing. Variations of an underwater vehicle's height above the sea floor and of its pitch and roll angles cause distortion in the data obtained, such that transformations to align the data should include rotation, translation, anisotropic scaling and skew. In order to deal with these problems, we propose to use the Wavelet transform for similarity detection. Wavelets have been widely used during the last three decades in image processing. Since the Wavelet transform allows a multi-resolution decomposition, it is easier to identify the similarities between two images by examining the energy distribution at each decomposition level.(cont.) The energy distribution in the frequency domain at the output of the high pass and low pass filter banks identifies the texture discrimination. Our approach uses a statistical framework, involving fitting the Wavelet coefficients into a generalized Gaussian density distribution. The next step involves use of the Kullback-Leibner entropy metric to measure the distance between Wavelet coefficient distributions. To select the top N most likely matching images, the database images are ranked based on the minimum Kullback-Leibner distance. The statistical approach is effective in eliminating rotation, mis-registration and skew problems by working in the Wavelet domain. It's recommended that further work focuses on choosing the best Wavelet packet to increase the robustness of the algorithm developed in this thesis.by Ilkay Darilmaz.S.M.in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering and S.M.in Mechanical Engineerin

Edge enhancement algorithm based on the wavelet transform for automatic edge detection in SAR images

This paper presents a novel technique for automatic edge enhancement and detection in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. The characteristics of SAR images justify the importance of an edge enhancement step prior to edge detection. Therefore, this paper presents a robust and unsupervised edge enhancement algorithm based on a combination of wavelet coefficients at different scales. The performance of the method is first tested on simulated images. Then, in order to complete the automatic detection chain, among the different options for the decision stage, the use of geodesic active contour is proposed. The second part of this paper suggests the extraction of the coastline in SAR images as a particular case of edge detection. Hence, after highlighting its practical interest, the technique that is theoretically presented in the first part of this paper is applied to real scenarios. Finally, the chances of its operational capability are assessed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Transform texture classification

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Ocean Engineering, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-163).by Xiaoou Tang.Ph.D

Introducing the locally stationary dual-tree complex wavelet model

This paper reconciles Kingsbury's dual-tree complex wavelets with Nason and Eckley's locally stationary model. We here establish that the dual-tree wavelets admit an invertible de-biasing matrix and that this matrix can be used to invert the covariance relation. We also show that the added directional selectivity of the proposed model adds utility to the standard two-dimensional local stationary model. Non-stationarity detection on random fields is used as a motivating example. Experiments confirm that the dual-tree model can distinguish anisotropic non-stationarities significantly better than the current model

Wavelet Operators and Multiplicative Observation Models - Application to Change-Enhanced Regularization of SAR Image Time Series

This paper first provides statistical properties of wavelet operators when the observation model can be seen as the product of a deterministic piecewise regular function (signal) and a stationary random field (noise). This multiplicative observation model is analyzed in two standard frameworks by considering either (1) a direct wavelet transform of the model or (2) a log-transform of the model prior to wavelet decomposition. The paper shows that, in Framework (1), wavelet coefficients of the time series are affected by intricate correlation structures which affect the signal singularities. Framework (2) is shown to be associated with a multiplicative (or geometric) wavelet transform and the multiplicative interactions between wavelets and the model highlight both sparsity of signal changes near singularities (dominant coefficients) and decorrelation of speckle wavelet coefficients. The paper then derives that, for time series of synthetic aperture radar data, geometric wavelets represent a more intuitive and relevant framework for the analysis of smooth earth fields observed in the presence of speckle. From this analysis, the paper proposes a fast-and-concise geometric wavelet based method for joint change detection and regularization of synthetic aperture radar image time series. In this method, geometric wavelet details are first computed with respect to the temporal axis in order to derive generalized-ratio change-images from the time series. The changes are then enhanced and speckle is attenuated by using spatial bloc sigmoid shrinkage. Finally, a regularized time series is reconstructed from the sigmoid shrunken change-images. An application of this method highlights the relevancy of the method for change detection and regularization of SENTINEL-1A dual-polarimetric image time series over Chamonix-Mont-Blanc test site

Wavelet Operators and Multiplicative Observation Models -Application to SAR Image Time Series Analysis

International audienceThis paper first provides statistical properties of wavelet operators when the observation model can be seen as the product of a deterministic piece-wise regular function (signal) and a stationary random field (noise). This multiplicative observation model is analyzed in two standard frameworks by considering either (1) a direct wavelet transform of the model or (2) a log-transform of the model prior to wavelet decomposition. The paper shows that, in Framework (1), wavelet coefficients of the time series are affected by intricate correlation structures which blur signal singularities. Framework (2) is shown to be associated with a multiplicative (or geometric) wavelet transform and the multiplicative interactions between wavelets and the model highlight both sparsity of signal changes near singularities (dominant coefficients) and decorre-lation of speckle wavelet coefficients. The paper then derives that, for time series of synthetic aperture radar data, geometric wavelets represent a more intuitive and relevant framework for the analysis of smooth earth fields observed in the presence of speckle. From this analysis, the paper proposes a fast-and-concise geometric wavelet based method for joint change detection and regularization of synthetic aperture radar image time series. In this method, geometric wavelet details are first computed with respect to the temporal axis in order to derive generalized-ratio change-images from the time series. The changes are then enhanced and speckle is attenuated by using spatial block sigmoid shrinkage. Finally, a regularized time series is reconstructed from the sigmoid shrunken change-images. Some applications highlight relevancy of the method for the analysis of SENTINEL-1A and TerraSAR-X image time series over Chamonix-Mont-Blanc