Automatic change detection using very high-resolution SAR images and prior knowledge about the scene

Change detection using very high resolution SAR images is an important source of information for reconnaissance applications. Modern SAR sensors are capable of acquiring many images in short periods of time, which creates the need for a reliable automatic change detection method. In this paper, we will describe a new automatic change detection approach that combines very high resolution SAR images with prior knowledge about the imaged scene. In this case, the prior knowledge about the scene will come from vector maps, which can be obtained from a Geographic Information System (GIS). These vector maps will allow us to determine which regions are of interest for the change detection, and what kind of changes/objects can be expected there. The algorithm described in this paper will be applied to a time series of high resolution TerraSAR-X images of a port with military shipyards, and used to automatically detect ship activity and extract information about the detected ships. In this case, the vector maps were obtained from a Geographic Information System (GIS) containing map data from OpenStreetMap.