Challenges in object detection in above-water imagery

Many existing methods of object detection, including edge detection, blob detection, and background subtraction (implemented in libraries such as OpenCV) have proven to be enormously successful when applied to many types of video datasets. However, detecting objects over water presents challenges that are unique and not easily accommodated for by pre-existing algorithms available in popular image processing libraries. In this paper, existing approaches are brie y reviewed, and the challenges encountered in above-water video datasets are highlighted. A recently proposed approach to object detection in radar images - a novel, pixel-intensity statistic based thresholding approach | is then reviewed. In this paper, this approach has been successfully applied to EO/IR datasets as well, extending the implementation to ensure success when applied onto other types of image datasets.