Sequence detection of planetary surface craters from DEM data

Abstract

The research on identification and recognition of impact craters on planetary surface is focused on how to detect them from background. A novel sequence algorithm is proposed to crater detection that utilizes DEM data instead of images. By investigating the features of ideal craters, several constraints can be developed to extract candidate crater edges from other topographies. Based on the fact that the shape of most craters is approximate to an ellipse, the Least Median Square Ellipse Fitting Method can be used to exclude pseudo-edges, and to reserve the real edges which contain the feature of the crater. The location, orientation and other physical parameters of the crater can be determined by fitting real edges to an ellipse based on Robust Least Square Method. Mathematical simulations are performed with the moon DEM data. The results show that the topography-based crater detection algorithm offers an effective method for identification and characterization of ellipse-like impact craters, and the accuracy is high enough.