Automatic Detection of Spots and Extraction of Frontiers in SAR Images by Means of the Wavelet Transform: Application to Ship and Coastline Detection

After reviewing and discussing the difficulties of dealing with automatic interpretation methods in SAR imagery, the advantages of using a multiscale time-frequency framework will be established. Then, a specific technique for automatic spot detection, based on the Wavelet Transform (WT), will be presented and justified. The performance of the proposed algorithm will be tested, validated and compared with respect to other algorithms. The particular difficulties of automatic ship detection in near shore waters will be then briefly discussed and, aiming to increase ship detection rates in these regions, a novel automatic algorithm for the extraction of elongated structures such as the coastline will be presented and tested.