Polarimetric edge detector based on the complex Wishart distribution

A new edge detector for polarimetric SAR data has been developed. The edge detector is based on a newly developed test statistic for equality of two complex covariance matrices following the complex Wishart distribution and an associated asymptotic probability for the test statistic. The new polarimetric edge detector provides a constant false alarm rate and it utilizes the full polarimetric information. The edge detector has been applied to polarimetric SAR data from the Danish dual-frequency, airborne polarimetric SAR, EMISAR. The results show clearly an improved edge detection performance for the full polarimetric detector compared to single channel approaches.