Patent Document ID: 20120013501
Application ID: 13259363
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. Process for identifying statistically homogeneous pixels in images acquired on the same area by means of a synthetic aperture radar (SAR sensor) comprising the following steps: (a) acquiring a plurality of N radar images (A 1. .. AN) by means of a SAR sensor on a same area with acquisition geometries suitable to consent the common grid re-sampling of data, (b) after the common grid re-sampling, selecting a pixel and identifying it as sample pixel ( 1 ), (c) calculating a vector of N amplitude or intensity values relative to the sample pixel in the N available images and identifying it as sample vector, (d) defining an estimation window ( 10 ) for the sample pixel to identify a set of pixels around the sample pixel, (e) calculating the vectors of N amplitude or intensity values for every pixel contained in the estimation window, similarly to what has been done for the sample pixel, (f) comparing, by means of a statistical test, every vector of amplitude or intensity values of the pixels belonging to the estimation window with the sample vector to verify which of the vectors of amplitude or intensity values are generated by the same probability distribution function of the sample vector, (g) identifying as homogeneous pixels ( 2 , 3 ) to the sample pixel the pixels associated to the vectors of amplitude or intensity values that have passed the statistical test of step (f) and identifying as non homogeneous pixels ( 4 ) to the sample pixel those pixels associated to the vectors of amplitude or intensity values that have not passed the test (f), (h) eliminating the pixels contained in the estimation window ( 10 ) that, even if associated to vectors that have passed the test (f), yet do not result connected ( 3 ) to the sample pixel, directly or by means of other pixels that resulted homogeneous to it, (i) identifying as statistically homogeneous pixels the pixels that result homogeneous and connected to the sample pixel.