An unsupervised approach based on the generalized Gaussian model to automatic change detection in multitemporal SAR images

We present a novel automatic and unsupervised change-detection approach specifically oriented to the analysis of multitemporal single-channel single-polarization synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. This approach is based on a closed-loop process made up of three main steps: (1) a novel preprocessing based on a controlled adaptive iterative filtering; (2) a comparison between multitemporal images carried out according to a standard log-ratio operator; and (3) a novel approach to the automatic analysis of the log-ratio image for generating the change-detection map. The first step aims at reducing the speckle noise in a controlled way in order to maximize the discrimination capability between changed and…