Automatically locating the typhoon center based on satellite cloud image

Abstract

An automatic locating algorithm is presented for typhoon center locating using cloud motion wind vectors derived from the satellite cloud images. The cloud motion wind vectors are obtained by implementing template matching to a pair of interrelated satellite cloud images with stated time interval. The template matching is a process to find the child image that corresponds to the given pattern image in an unknown pattern image. Three matching algorithms are compared. Namely, the absolute difference matching algorithm, the sequential similarity detection algorithm and the infrared cross-correlation coefficients matching algorithm. The third one is selected to acquire the set of cloud motion wind vectors duo to its desirable vector results. Aiming at the specific typhoon cloud image, two simplifications are processed in the course of acquiring the cloud motion wind vectors. According to meteorological analysis, typhoon center motion has two important characteristics: (1) The translation in the central area is great while the spin is feeble. (2) The center moving direction is compatible to that of the whole typhoon clouds. According to these characteristics, the algorithm for automatically locating the typhoon center can be depicted as follows: firstly pick up the vectors that compatible to the whole typhoon cloud motion vectors in the cloud motion wind vectors image, then find out the thickest area of the satisfied vectors, lastly process the thickest area with mathematical morphology until there exists only one pixel point. The locating result shows that the thought in the paper is good and can be a promising application in the typhoon center location field.