DETECTION OF POSSIBLE WATER-ICE DEPOSITS ON LUNAR SURFACE USING

CONFORMITY COEFFICIENT: AN APPLICATION OF MINISAR DATA

Nidhi Verma1, Pooja Mishra2, Neetesh Purohit3, Dharmendra Singh4

1, 2, 3
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, India, 211015
4
Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India, 247667
1
nidhiverma.iiita@gmail.com, 2er.poojamisra@gmail.com, 3np.iiita@ac.in
4
dhramfec@gmail.com
ABSTRACT in this paper both CPR>1 and D have been used to identify
rough and smooth region [7]. Since the water-ice deposits
There have been several investigation about water-ice region has exhibits diffuse scattering. Thus, the diffuse
depositions on the lunar polar regions. Earlier, studies scattering has been extracted by a parameter called a
were based on criterion circular polarization ratio conformity coefficient (µ) [8].
(CPR). However, It is quite challenging to classify water- This paper is arranged as follows. Study area and
ice deposits on the basis of criterion CPR>1, because it data information are given in section 2. The methodology is
occurs in water-ice and rough surface region both. Thus, given in section 3. Outcomes are discussed in Section 4.
it is essential to examine the CPR>1, laterally with other Section 5 contains concluding statement.
significant parameters fractal dimension and conformity
coefficient (µ) for better classification. First fractal 2. STUDY SITE AND DATA USED
dimension (D) based method has been used to
differentiate between the rough and smooth surface. 2.1 Study Site
Further, conformity coefficient (µ) is used to identify
possible water-ice region associated with volume The present work has been evaluated on MiniSAR data, of
scattering. This dominant volume scattering pixels Peary crater. This is situated at 88.60N, 330E on the lunar
points were extracted from the degree of polarization North Polar Region.
(DOP) for better classification. Finally, obtained results
have been compared with existing methods. The entire 2.2 Data Description
study indicates that the classification of water-ice
deposits using conformity coefficient (µ) gives good MiniSAR is worked on S-band frequency (13 cm). It
results. provides horizontal (ELH) and vertical polarized (ELV) raw
data. Further, ELH and ELV has been used in the development
Index Terms— MiniSAR, CPR, Stokes vector, of the Stokes vectors (S) as given in equation (1) [9]. Using
conformity coefficient, fractal dimension (1), fractal dimension, CPR, and conformity coefficient (µ)
have been calculated, that is used to extract the information
1. INTRODUCTION of lunar surface as well as textural classification of the lunar
surface.
There have been numerous missions that confirmed the  2 2

existence of water-ice particles on lunar surface.  S 1   E LH  E LV 
Chandrayaan-1 of India was such one mission [1]. That was S   2 2

E  E
Sˆ      (1)
2 LH LV
lunch to map lunar polar regions for identifying possible 
 S 3  2 Re al ( E E * ) 
water-ice deposits [2]. In this work hybrid polarimetric    LH LV

MiniSAR data has been used for finding possible water-ice  S 4   2 Im ag ( E LH E LV

* 
 )
deposits. From literature review it has been found that
circular polarization ratio (CPR) has the capability to
identify water-ice regions on the basis of criterion CPR>1 Where ELH = Horizontal electrical field
[3-5]. However, this criterion is also shown by rough region
too [6]. Therefore, in order to resolve this ambiguity the ELV = Vertical electrical field
concept of fractal dimension (D) has been used for surface
classification on the basis of roughness parameter [6]. Thus, E*LH = Complex part of horizontal electrical field

978-1-5386-7150-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 4567 IGARSS 2018

 E*LV = Complex part of vertical electrical field
3. METHODOLOGY
The flowchart for proposed work is given in Figure 1.
Figure 1 Flowchart for proposed work
A. Information Extraction Using Child Parameters
After obtaining the Stokes parameters various useful
numerical measures named child parameters that is circular
polarization ratio (CPR), degree of polarization (DOP) have
been extracted [10]. The CPR>1 is a significant indicator for
identification of possible water-ice regions. However, this
criterion is also exhibits by rough regions. Therefore,
another parameter called DOP has been used to identify
regions with scattering phenomenon. The mathematical
equation for DOP and CPR is given by equations (2) and (3)
respectively[10].
√
(2)
(3)
B. Information Extraction Using Fractal Dimension
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The ambiguity caused by CPR>1, in distinguishing rough
and water-ice region provides challenges. Thus, the concept
of fractal dimension has been introduced [6]. Fractal
dimension (D) is able to identify irregularity of natural land
surface on the basis of surface roughness. The lower value
of fractal dimension represents smooth surface. Thus, if
region having CPR>1 and lower D, then there will be a
possibility of water-ice deposits [6, 7]. Thus TPSAM has
been used for calculating D (window size 11X11) [6, 7, 11].
Finally, D<2.176 has been applied for differentiating
smooth and rough region. Hence, total regions can be
separated into two regions.
1) Region 1: smooth region: CPR>1, D<2.176
2) Region 2: rough region: CPR>1, D>2.176
C. Information Extraction Using Fractal Dimension
Further the features conformity coefficient (µ) has
been calculated using (4) [8, 12]. This feature provides
information related to target. Using m-δ decomposition it
has been found that volume scattering is equal to 0.335.
Thus, this criterion has been overlaid on image of μ to
obtain the possible volume scattering. The mathematical
equation for conformity coefficients is given below
*
2 Im aginary E LH E LV
 (4)
*
E LH E LH  E LV E LV
*
Where µ = Conformity coefficient
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
After obtaining the region CPR>1, as shown in Figure 2,
Further, criterion CPR> 1 and D < 2.176 have been used for
identification of smooth region as shown in Figure 3 [7].
Further, DOP < 0.335 criterion has been applied as shown in
Figure 4 for finding the ROIs associated with volume
scattering. These ROIs have been further used to extract the
volume scattering from possible water-ice regions using
conformity coefficient (µ) which ranges from -0.334 to 0.30
[8]. The computational results for µ are given in Table 1.
The classified image using conformity coefficient (µ) is
shown in Figure 5, where green color represents volume
scattering based on µ overlaid on S1 image.
Table 1 Conformity coefficient (µ)
Types of Minimum Maximum Mean Stdv
scattering
Volume -0.334 0.320 -0.117 0.119
 Figure 4 classified image (green) using DOP<0.335
overlay on S1.

Figure 2 Classified images (green) using existing method

CPR> 1, overlay on S1

Figure 5 Possible water-ice deposits (green) using

conformity coefficient (µ) only overlay on S1.
Table 2 Classification comparison of proposed and
others methods

Method name Total satisfying Satisfying

pixels (number) pixels (%)

Earlier method [6] 1978 0.49

Figure 3 classified image (blue) using CPR>1 and Earlier method 2 [10] 881 0.22
D<2.17, overlay on S1.
Proposed method 3325 0.83
Finally, CPR, DOP, μ, and D have been used for Intersection of Earlier 1977 0.37
the implementation of proposed method as shown in Figure method 1 and Proposed
1. Figure 6 shows the final classified image using the Intersection of Earlier 143 0.03
proposed method, where possible water-ice is shown in method 2 and proposed
green color.

4569

Further, obtained results from proposed method have been
compared with earlier methods [6, 10]. The computational
results are mention in Table 2. After obtaining the results
from proposed and earlier methods, intersection of proposed
and earlier methods have been performed as shown in Table
2. From Table 2, it has been observed that intersection of
earlier method 1 [6] and proposed method provides possible
water-ice deposits of 0.37%. Intersection of earlier method 2
[10] and proposed method provides 0.03%, which is very
low. Thus, from Table 2, it has been observed that proposed
and earlier method 1 [6] are able to provide better results for
identification of possible water-ice deposits.
Figure 6 Classification of water-ice deposits (volume
scattering) using proposed method overlay on S1.
5. CONCLUSIONS
Here, we have identified the possibility for presence of
water ice deposits on Peary crater. In this work, the
identification of possible water-ice particle using conformity
coefficient (µ) has been used to ensure the region associated
with volume scattering. From the analysis of proposed
method, it is observed that about 0.83 % total observed area
shows the presence of water ice. The obtained results from
proposed method have been compared with earlier method 1
and 2. The computational results show that the earlier
method 1 and proposed work provide better classification
results as compared to earlier method 2.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Authors are gratified to Space Application Center
(SAC) Ahmedabad for providing MiniSAR data for carrying
out this research work.
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