The State-of-the-Art in Ship Detection in Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery

Abstract

This report is a review of the publicly available literature on algorithms for detecting ships in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery, with the aim of recommending algorithms for inclusion in the Analysts' Detection Support System (ADSS). The ADSS is a software system being developed at DSTO for the automatic detection of targets in SAR imagery. We outline the motivations, theory and justifications of the various approaches so that educated comparisons and evaluations can be made. Most current research on ship detection is based on detecting the ship itself rather than its wake. Detection of ship wakes is not addressed in any depth. Ship detection systems generally consist of several stages: land masking; preprocessing; prescreening; and discrimination. We consider each of these stages in turn and discuss the various algorithms which have been used. A basic system for low to medium resolution single channel SAR imagery is recommended and suggestions for improvements and alternatives are made.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2004
Accession Number
ADA426096

Entities

People

  • D. J. Crisp

Organizations

  • Defence Science and Technology Group

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Computational Science
  • Databases
  • Detection
  • Detectors
  • Electromagnetic Scattering
  • European Communities
  • Geography
  • Graphical User Interface
  • Information Processing
  • Information Science
  • Machine Learning
  • Oceans
  • Order Statistics
  • Pattern Recognition
  • Surveillance
  • Target Recognition
  • Two Dimensional

Readers

  • Computer Vision.
  • Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.
  • Systems Analysis and Design