SAR/ISAR REAL TIME IMAGE PROCESSING FOR AIR ASW PLATFORMS

Using SAR/ISAR imagery to detect and classify small targets in cluttered environments for ASW applications requires careful examination of the full array of image processing, computer vision, and related methods in order to identify those that are well-matched to the problem and thus offer promise to exploit the specific spatio-temporal characteristics that distinguish targets from environmental clutter. In this proposal we describe an effort to accomplish this task; we describe several recently-developed, advanced methodologies that appear to hold special promise. In particular, in addition to standard methods of image analysis, we intend to exploit i) recent advances in multi-resolution and fractal image processing, including methods based on the wavelet transform; ii) nonlinear image analysis methods based on morphological filtering that deal with particular pattern characteristics that distinguish targets and clutter; and iii) spatio-temporal image analysis methods, aimed at exploiting the differences in the temporal coherency of targets and some sources of clutter.