An adaptive order-statistics filter for SAR images

An algorithm based on local order statistics is proposed for adaptive reduction of speckle noise in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. A selective smoothing is obtained by replacing a pixel value belonging to either of the tails of the local histogram by its percentile, whose area is adaptively defined by a Gaussian function of the Local Variation Coefficient. The filter can tit the actual noise level and preserves structures, textures, and point targets, as well as the local mean without introducing any blur on the edges, mostly due to its closure property. Comparisons with algorithms suitable for speckle smoothing are performed on true SAR images and show selective signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) enhancements.