Change detection in high resolution SAR images: Amplitude based activity map compared with the CoVAmCoh analysis

Change detection based on remote sensing data has become a highly frequented field of research with multiple applications for practical use. In this study, a fully-automatic change detection method based on SAR amplitude images is proposed. This method aims at the detection of small-scaled abrupt changes which are caused for example by different kinds of vehicles or building sites. As dataset, a time series (about half a year) of TerraSAR-X images covering the scene of Greding (Germany) and surroundings was used. From this dataset, an amplitude based activity map was calculated. For evaluation purpose, this method is compared with the CoVAmCoh analysis, which represents a complementary approach for SAR change detection. In a final step, first evaluations concerning the change categorization are considered.