High-Resolution PolSAR Image Interpretation Based on Human Image Cognition Mechanism

Abstract

Since the all-day and all-weather working characteristics, polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) has been widely used in many application for earth observation. PolSAR system can acquire targets scattering information under different polarization patterns and obtain detailed information, such as physical characteristics, spatial distribution and direction of the targets, etc. However, in high-resolution PolSAR images, the scattering characteristics of targets are very sophisticated, and different parts of the same target may present different scattering mechanisms. As a result, traditional interpretation technologies are sometimes not applicable in a high-resolution PolSAR scenario. Recently, many artificial intelligence algorithms that simulate the scheme of human cognition have been developed and they have great significance for efficient, intelligent, and accurate images interpretation. In this paper, based on human cognition theory and taking into account the characteristics of targets in PolSAR images, an algorithm for the interpretation of various targets in high-resolution PolSAR images is presented. In this paper, a “perception–reasoning–decision” cognition model is built following the cognition process of professional PolSAR image interpreters. In addition, with the help of theories such as multilevel image segmentation, fuzzy logic, neural network, and the context semantic characteristics, the mathematical model is established and implemented. The proposed method is performed on several sets of PolSAR images obtained under different imaging conditions and is validated by comparing with existing classification methods. The results show that the proposed method can effectively improve the identification of targets from PolSAR images.