A review of ship detection algorithms in polarimetric SAR images

In this paper, we take a brief review of the different approaches used for ship detection in polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (POL-SAR) images. After an introduction of the standard polarimetric detectors (SPDs) used in polarimetric detection for general targets, four main types of polarimetric detection algorithms with special respect to ship targets are summarized: the coherent target decomposition algorithm (CTD), polarimetric entropy (PE) algorithm, polarimetric detectors based on fusion, and segmentation based polarimetric method. Preliminary conclusion is drawn from the performance comparison of each type and indicates how these algorithms applied for ship targets respectively.