Cher Hau Seng

Two-Stage Fuzzy Fusion With Applications to Through-the-Wall Radar Imaging

A two-stage fuzzy image fusion approach, which combines multiple radar images of the same scene, is proposed to produce a more informative image. In this approach, two different image fusion methods are first applied. Then, a fuzzy logic fusion method is applied to the outputs of the first fusion stage. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated on through-the-wall radar images obtained using different polarizations. Experimental results show that the proposed approach enhances image quality by producing outputs with high target intensity values and low clutter.

Probabilistic Fuzzy Image Fusion Approach for Radar Through Wall Sensing

This paper addresses the problem of combining multiple radar images of the same scene to produce a more informative composite image. The proposed approach for probabilistic fuzzy logic-based image fusion automatically forms fuzzy membership functions using the Gaussian-Rayleigh mixture distribution. It fuses the input pixel values directly without requiring fuzzification and defuzzification, thereby removing the subjective nature of the existing fuzzy logic methods. In this paper, the proposed approach is applied to through-the-wall radar imaging in urban sensing and evaluated on real multi-view and polarimetric data. Experimental results show that the proposed approach yields improved image contrast and enhances target detection.

Fuzzy Logic-Based Image Fusion for Multi-view Through-the-Wall Radar

In this paper, we propose a new technique for image fusion in multi-view through-the-wall radar imaging system. As most existing image fusion methods for through-the-wall radar imaging only consider a global fusion operator, it is desirable to consider the differences between each pixel using a local operator. Here, we present a fuzzy logic-based method for pixel-wise image fusion. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated on both simulated and real data from through-the-wall radar imaging system. Experimental results show that the proposed method yields improved performance, compared to existing methods.

Image Segmentations for Through-the-Wall Radar Target Detection

Detection of stationary targets using pixel-wise likelihood ratio test (LRT) detectors has been recently proposed for through-the-wall radar imaging (TWRI) applications. We employ image segmentation techniques, in lieu of LRT, for target detection in TWRI. More specifically the widely used between-class variance (BCV) thresholding, maximum entropy segmentation, and K-means clustering are considered to aid in removing the clutter, resulting in enhanced radar images with target regions only. For the case when multiple images of the same scene are available through diversity in polarization and/or vantage points around a building structure, we propose to use image fusion, following the image segmentation step, to generate an enhanced composite image. In particular, additive, multiplicative, and fuzzy logic fusion techniques are considered. The performance of the segmentation and fusion schemes is evaluated and compared with that of the assumed LRT detector using both electromagnetic (EM) modeling and real data collected in a laboratory environment. The results show that, although the principles of segmentation and detection are different, the segmentation techniques provide either comparable or improved performance over the LRT detector. Specifically, in the cases considered, the maximum entropy segmentation produces the best results for detection of targets inside building structures. For fusion of multiple segmented images of the same scene, the fuzzy logic fusion outperforms the other methods.

Automatic left ventricle detection in echocardiographic images for deformable contour initialization

The accurate left ventricular boundary detection in echocardiographic images allow cardiologists to study and assess cardiomyopathy in patients. Due to the tedious and time consuming manner of manually tracing the borders, deformable models are generally used for left ventricle segmentations. However, most deformable models require a good initialization, which is usually outlined manually by the user. In this paper, we propose an automated left ventricle detection method for two-dimensional echocardiographic images that could serve as an initialization for deformable models. The proposed approach consists of pre-processing and post-processing stages, coupled with the watershed segmentation. The pre-processing stage enhances the overall contrast and reduces speckle noise, whereas the post-processing enhances the segmented region and avoids the papillary muscles. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated on real data. Experimental results show that it is suitable for automatic contour initialization since no prior assumptions nor human interventions are required. Besides, the computational time taken is also lower compared to an existing method.

A Gaussian-Rayleigh mixture modeling approach for through-the-wall radar image segmentation

In this paper, we propose a Gausssian-Rayleigh mixture modeling approach to segment indoor radar images in urban sensing applications. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated on real 2D polarimetric data. Experimental results show that the proposed method enhances image quality by distinguishing between target and clutter regions. The proposed method is also compared to an existing Neyman-Pearson (NP) target detector that has been recently devised for through-the-wall radar imaging. Performance evaluation of both methods shows that the proposed method outperforms the NP detector in enhancing the input images.

Segmentations of through-the-wall radar images

In this paper, we examine the use of image segmentation approaches for target detection in TWRI. The between-class variance thresholding, entropy-based segmentation, and K-means clustering are applied to segment target and clutter regions. Real 2D polarimetric images are used to demonstrate that simple histogram-based segmentation methods produce either comparable or improved performance over the Likelihood Ratio Tests (LRT) detector. Specifically, the results show that, for the cases considered, the entropy-based segmentation outperforms the other image segmentation methods and the LRT detector.

Automatic parameter selection for feature-enhanced radar image restoration

In this paper, we propose a new technique for optimum parameter selection in non-quadratic radar image restoration. Although both the regularization hyper-parameter and the norm value are influential factors in the characteristics of the formed restoration, most existing optimization methods either require memory intensive computation or prior knowledge of the noise. Here, we present a contrast measure-based method for automated hyper-parameter selection. The proposed method is then extended to optimize the norm value used in non-quadratic image formation and restoration. The proposed method is evaluated on the MSTAR public target database and compared to the GCV method. Experimental results show that the proposed method yields better image quality at a much reduced computational cost.