QMCTLS: Quasi Monte Carlo Texture Likelihood Sampling for Despeckling of Complex Polarimetric SAR Images

Abstract

Despeckling of complex polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images is more difficult than denoising of general images due to the low signal-to-noise ratio and the complex signals. A novel stochastic polarimetric SAR despeckling technique based on quasi Monte Carlo sampling (QMCS) and region-based probabilistic similarity likelihood has been developed. The despeckling of complex polarimetric SAR images is formulated as a Bayesian least squares optimization problem, where the posterior distribution is estimated by QMCS in a nonparametric manner. The QMCS approach allows the incorporation of the statistical description of local texture pattern similarity. Experiments on two benchmark quad-pol SAR images demonstrate that the proposed QMC texture likelihood sampling (QMCTLS) filter outperforms referenced methods in terms of both noise removal and detail preservation.