Range anomaly suppression based on neighborhood pixels detection in ladar range images

Research on the range anomaly suppression algorithm in laser radar (ladar) range images is significant in the application and development of ladar. But most of existing algorithms cannot protect the edge and linear target well while suppressing the range anomaly. Aiming at this problem, the differences among the edge, linear target, and range anomaly are analyzed and a novel algorithm based on neighborhood pixels detection is proposed. Firstly, the range differences between current pixel and its neighborhood pixels are calculated. Then, the number of neighborhood pixels is detected by the range difference threshold. Finally, whether the current pixel is a range anomaly is distinguished by the neighborhood pixel number threshold. Experimental results show that the new algorithm not only has a better range anomaly suppression performance and higher efficiency, but also protects the edge and linear target preferably compared with other algorithms.