Convolutional neural network and guided filtering for SAR image denoising

Abstract

Coherent noise often interferes with synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which has a huge impact on subsequent processing and analysis. This paper puts forward a novel algorithm involving the convolutional neural network (CNN) and guided filtering for SAR image denoising, which combines the advantages of model-based optimization and discriminant learning and considers how to obtain the best image information and improve the resolution of the images. The advantages of proposed method are that, firstly, an SAR image is filtered via five different level denoisers to obtain five denoised images, in which the efficient and effective CNN denoiser prior is employed. Later, a guided filtering-based fusion algorithm is used to integrate the five denoised images into a final denoised image. The experimental results indicate that the algorithm cannot eliminate noise, but it does improve the visual effect of the image significantly, allowing it to outperform some recent denoising methods in this field.