Since the events of September 11, 2001, the intelligence focus has moved from large order-of-battle targets to small targets of opportunity. Additionally, the business community has discovered the use of remotely sensed data to anticipate demand and derive data on their competition. This requires the finer spectral and spatial fidelity now available to recognize those targets. This work hypothesizes that directed searches using calibrated data perform at least as well as inscene manually intensive target detection searches. It uses calibrated Worldview-2 multispectral images with NEF generated signatures and standard detection algorithms to compare bespoke directed search capabilities against ENVI™ in-scene search capabilities. Multiple execution runs are performed at increasing thresholds to generate detection rates. These rates are plotted and statistically analyzed. While individual head-to-head comparison results vary, 88% of the directed searches performed at least as well as in-scene searches with 50% clearly outperforming in-scene methods. The results strongly support the premise that directed searches perform at least as well as comparable in-scene searches.

Date Published: 21 May 2015
PDF: 15 pages
Proc. SPIE 9472, Algorithms and Technologies for Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Imagery XXI, 94721H (21 May 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2177283

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9472:
Algorithms and Technologies for Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Imagery XXI
Miguel Velez-Reyes; Fred A. Kruse, Editor(s)