Polarimetric SAR Speckle Filtering Using a Nonlocal Weighted LMMSE Filter

Abstract

Despeckling is a key preprocessing step for applications using PolSAR data in most cases. In this paper, a technique based on a nonlocal weighted linear minimum mean-squared error (NWLMMSE) filter is proposed for polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) speckle filtering. In the process of filtering a pixel by the LMMSE estimator, the idea of nonlocal means is employed to evaluate the weights of the samples in the estimator, based on the statistical equalities between the neighborhoods of the sample pixels and the processed pixel. The NWLMMSE estimator is then derived. In the preliminary processing, an effective step is taken to preclassify the pixels, aiming at preserving point targets and considering the similarity of the scattering mechanisms between pixels in the subsequent filter. A simulated image and two real-world PolSAR images are used for illustration, and the experiments show that this filter is effective in speckle reduction, while effectively preserving strong point targets, edges, and the polarimetric scattering mechanism.

Keywords

• polarimetric synthetic aperture radar
• speckle filtering
• complex Wishart distribution
• nonlocal means