Change Detection of Polarimetric SAR Images Using Minkowski Log-Ratio Distance

The Minkowski log-ratio (MLR) distance admits closed-form formula for mixture model of exponential families (Gaussian family, Wishart family, etc.), and is suitable for measuring the dissimilarity of polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) data. In this paper, MLR distance is introduced for PolSAR image change detection. Specifically, the PolSAR images are estimated by Wishart mixture models and over-segmented into superpixels first. After that, the statistical distribution differences between two corresponding superpixels are measured by MLR distance. Finally, the change detection map is obtained by the Kittler-Illingworth thresholding method based on the generated difference map. Qualitative and quantitative experimental analysis shows the MLR distance can provide a desirable difference map which facilitates the following thresholding stage.