A novel method of crater detection on digital elevation models

As an essential geomorphological structures on planetary surface, impact craters can provide significant information in determining the planetary chronology. This paper proposes a novel automatic crater detection algorithm by using digital elevation model (DEM) data. The method includes: 1) pre-processing of the original DEM data, which can eliminate the effect of other landform; 2) iterative crater detections, which can eliminate small objects and analyze roundness. We use the DEMs instead of the imagery data because the DEMs could be unaffected by the solar altitude and atmospheric conditions, etc. Our detection algorithm is evaluated using several test sets of Martian DEM data obtained by the Mars Obiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) boarded on the Mars Global Surveyor. The experimental results show the high true detection rate and low false detection rate of our algorithm according to the Barlow catalogue.