Finding Anomalies in Radar Sea Clutter Using Radon Transforms

This paper shows an application of a technique for finding anomalies in an image. The technique is based on transforming the image in a way which reduces the ‘normative’ form into a compact region within the transform domain. This region can be eliminated and the transform inverted to leave only anomalous features. The technique is applied to range-time data from a millimetre-wave radar observing littoral sea clutter. The wavefronts are approximately straight in such images, so a Radon transform is used to compress straight lines into single points. Removing the brightest points in the transformed image leaves only the anomalies in the scene (i..e. features not corresponding to the waves on the sea).