Synthetic aperture radar speckle reduction for circle mode SAR images

Abstract

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images contain a grainy pattern, called speckle, that is a consequence of a coherent imaging system. For fine resolution SAR images speckle can obscure subtle features and reduce visual appeal. Many speckle reduction methods result in a loss of image resolution and reduce visual appeal which can obscure subtle features. Another approach to maintain resolution while reducing speckle is to register and combine multiple images. For persistent surveillance applications it is more efficient for an airborne platform to fly circles around the particular area of interest. In these cases, it would be beneficial to combine multiple circle mode SAR images, however the image registration process is not so straightforward because the layover angle changes in each image. This paper develops a SAR image registration process for combining multiple circle mode SAR images to reduce speckle while preserving resolution. The registration first uses a feature matching algorithm for a coarse rotation and alignment, and then uses a fine registration and warp. Ku band SAR data from a circle mode SAR collection is used to show the effectiveness of the registration and enhanced visual appeal from multi-looking.