Multiband SAS Imagery

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel multiband SAS imaging method that combines high and low frequency imagery into a color composite, enhancing scene interpretation by highlighting salient features across bands.

Contribution

The paper presents a new technique for integrating multiband SAS images into a single color composite using saliency metrics, improving analysis efficiency.

Findings

Effective combination of HF and LF SAS images into MSAS images.

Enhanced scene interpretation through saliency-based image fusion.

Potential for improved underwater object detection and classification.

Abstract

Advances in unmanned synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) imaging platforms allow for the simultaneous collection of multiband SAS imagery. The imagery is collected over several octaves and the phenomenology's interactions with the sea floor vary greatly over this range -- higher frequencies resolve proud and fine structure of the seafloor while lower frequencies resolve subsurface features and often induce internal resonance in man-made objects. Currently, analysts examine multiband imagery by viewing a single band at a time. This method makes it difficult to ascertain correlations between any pair of bands collected over the same location. To mitigate this issue, we propose methods which ingest high frequency (HF) and low frequency (LF) SAS imagery and generates a color composite creating what we call a multiband SAS (MSAS) image. The MSAS image contains the relevant portions of the HF and LF images required by an analyst to interpret the scene and are defined using a spatial saliency metric computed for each image. We then combine the saliency and acoustic backscatter measures to form the final MSAS image.