Optimal speckle reduction in multi-look polarimetric SAR image

Presents a method, called the multi-look polarimetric whitening filtering (MPWF), to reduce speckle in multi-look polarimetric SAR image by processing elements of the complex covariance matrix into pixel intensity that minimizes the image speckle. By considering a multiplicative speckle model, the solution of the MPWF is proved to be the maximum likelihood (ML) estimation of the scalar texture parameter. The performance of the MPWF for detection of targets in clutter is also analyzed. Experimental results with NASA/JPL L-band 4-look polarimetric SAR data demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented method. Compared with the span and.