An algorithm of boundaries detection in low-contrast radar images of the Earth

Abstract

One of the problems of radar images analysis of the Earth is the detection of boarders between areas with different normalized effective radar cross-sections. In this paper, we propose a computationally effective quasi-optimal algorithm capable for building approximation of such boarders with straight line segments for low-contrast radar images and arbitrary line for high-contrast radar images. To achieve computational efficiency we apply image segmentation and later approximation. Efficiency of the proposed algorithm was examined on a number of computer generated radar image fragments including low-contrast radar images. Proposed algorithm can be effectively implemented using modern parallel computation systems. © 2016 Academic Publications, Ltd.