Thales Holdings UK Plc

Malcolm Stevens

Richard Stroud

Stuart Young

Methods and devices use information from the original SAR images to provide measurements that can be applied to corresponding change detection products. This produces reliable registration and alignment for the change products even when the imaging geometry is significantly changed. A method of processing synthetic aperture radar, SAR, image data comprising a plurality of frames of SAR image data for each of a plurality of image geometries; for each image geometry, applying change detection to the frames of SAR image data corresponding to that image geometry to produce a corresponding plurality of change products; selecting a plurality of said acquired frames as reference frames, one in respect of each image geometry; applying a multilook SAR process to the reference frames to produce a multilook SAR product, the multilook SAR process comprising at least one processing stage comprising measuring a property of the data contained in the reference frames and applying a transformation to the data governed by the measured property; and applying a multilook change process to the change products, the multilook change process comprising applying the same transformation as in the multilook SAR process, to the change products, to produce a multilook change product.

Multilook coherent change detection

Embodiments described herein simplify the recognition of objects in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. This may be achieved by processing the image in order to make the shadow caused by the object appear more similar to the object. Alternatively, this may be achieved by processing the image in order to make the layover caused by the object appear more similar to the object. Manipulation of the shadow caused by the object and the layover caused by the object may comprise altering the aspect ratio of the image, and in the case of manipulating the shadow caused by the image, may further comprise transforming the image by reflection or rotation. The aspect ratio of the image may be altered based on information about the image collection geometry, obtained by the SAR.

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West Sussex, United Kingdom

Malcolm Stevens