Principal component analysis in the wavelet domain: new features for underwater object recognition
Gordon Okimoto, David W. Lemonds · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1999
Principal component analysis (PCA) in the wavelet domain provides powerful features for underwater object recognition applications. The multiresolution analysis of the Morlet wavelet transform (MWT) is used to pre-process echo returns from targets ensonified by biologically motivated broadband signal. PCA is then used to compress and denoise the resulting time-scale signal representation for presentation to a hierarchical neural network for object classification. Wavelet/PCA features combined with multi-aspect data fusion and neural networks have resulted in impressive underwater object recognition performance using backscatter data generated by simulate dolphin echolocation clicks and bat- like linear frequency modulated upsweeps. For example, wavelet/PCA features extracted from LFM echo returns have resulted in correct classification rates of 98.6 percent over a six target suite, which includes two mine simulators and four clutter objects. For the same data, ROC analysis of the two-class mine-like versus non-mine-like problem resulted in a probability of detection of 0.981 and a probability of false alarm of 0.032 at the 'optimal' operating point. The wavelet/PCA feature extraction algorithm is currently being implemented in VLSI for use in small, unmanned underwater vehicles designed for mine- hunting operations in shallow water environments.