A Multi-layer Feature based Registration Method for SAR Images on Unstable Aerial Platforms

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging has been widely applied in drones for its consistent surveillance capability and invulnerability to smoke or cloud. Yet drone platform is unstable and observing distance is much shorter than satellite. As a consequence, the SAR image registration, which is a crucial process in SAR imaging, is influenced by sparkling scattering spots and coherent speckle noise. In this paper, we propose a multi-layer method to improve SAR registration performance on drones. ORB method is applied to mitigate sparkle scattering spot. Multi-layer feature clustering can eliminate the error matches by coherent speckle noise. Experiments were carried out to valid the proposed method. Results demonstrate that the proposed method can improve SAR image registration performance on unstable aerial platforms.