Patent ID: 8125370

Claim:
A system for processing an acquired polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image of a region to identify a candidate pixel that correlates to a target representation, said polarimetric SAR image having a plurality of pixels, said candidate pixel corresponding to a position in said region that contains a candidate object, the system comprising: a sub-aperture processor configured to extract an N plurality of sub-apertures from the polarimetric SAR image; a polarimetric decomposition processor configured to deconstruct a J plurality of parameter components from each sub-aperture of said N plurality of sub-apertures; a log-likelihood processor configured to identify the candidate pixel by generating a log-likelihood value from said J plurality of parameter components by: obtaining an acquired value for said sub-aperture from at least one parameter component of said J plurality of parameter components; acquiring a reference value that characterizes said parameter component for the target representation; determining a distance value between said reference value and said acquired value; combining said distance value for said each sub-aperture of said N plurality of sub-apertures together to obtain said log-likelihood value; and log-likelihood value against a classification criterion to determine whether the candidate pixel conforms to the target representative.