Improving target detection in active polarimetric images

Francois Goudail; Philippe Refregier

doi:10.1117/12.421134

20 March 2001 Improving target detection in active polarimetric images

Proceedings Volume 4387, Optical Pattern Recognition XII; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.421134
Event: Aerospace/Defense Sensing, Simulation, and Controls, 2001, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

We address the problem of small target detection in active polarimetric images. We consider polarimetric imagers which illuminate the scene with purely polarized light and form two images with the part of the backscattered light polarized in the same state as the illumination, and in the orthogonal state. We first show that if the illumination intensity is considered random, the only information relevant for target detection is contained in the ratio of both images. Since the detection algorithm optimal in the maximum-likelihood (ML) sense is computationally complex, we propose a simpler yet efficient target detection algorithm, which consists in applying the ML detector optimal for additive Gaussian noise to the logarithm of the channel ratio. Indeed, in this new image, the fluctuations can be considered additive and their distribution nearly Gaussian. We show that this method performs well in both simulated and real polarimetric images.

Citation Download Citation

Francois Goudail and Philippe Refregier "Improving target detection in active polarimetric images", Proc. SPIE 4387, Optical Pattern Recognition XII, (20 March 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.421134

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