Adaptive and fast target detection in high-resolution SAR image

In this paper, a new adaptive and fast Constant false alarm rate (CFAR) target detection algorithm based on two level CFAR (TL-CFAR) detectors in high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images is proposed. In the first level, the initial mask of targets is obtained by Cell Averaging CFAR (CA-CFAR) detector. In the second level, the precise parameters estimation of CFAR in the local window is implemented by removing those pixels that may belong to the neighboring targets which is identified from the first detector. The problem of high computational complexity of two levels CFAR detector is mitigated by introducing the integral image. Real SAR image data is used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, and the results indicate that this algorithm can detect targets fast and precisely.