Enhancing Impact Crater Contours to Increase Recognition Rates

Abstract

This paper introduces an enhancement to the edge detection procedures that are part of a general methodology which aims at increasing the robustness of the automatic recognition of impact craters on planetary surfaces. It is demonstrated that the proposed improvement is a major contribution to increase the recognition rates and to simultaneously diminish the rates of false positives. Its performance is evaluated through a comparison with other classic edge detectors, which are applied to a set of images of the surface of Mars acquired by the MOC instrument aboard Mars Global Surveyor, a probe currently orbiting the planet.