Deep convolutional neural network for meteorology target detection in airborne weather radar images

Considering the problem that the scattering echo images of airborne Doppler weather radar are often reduced by ground clutters, the accuracy and confidence of meteorology target detection are reduced. In this paper, a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) is proposed for meteorology target detection and ground clutter suppression with a large collection of airborne weather radar images as network input. For each weather radar image, the corresponding digital elevation model (DEM) image is extracted on basis of the radar antenna scanning parameters and plane position, and is further fed to the network as a supplement for ground clutter suppression. The features of actual meteorology targets are learned in each bottle-neck module of the proposed network and convolved into deeper iterations in the forward propagation process. Then the network parameters are updated by the back propagation iteration of the training error. Experimental results on the real measured images show that our proposed DCNN outperforms the counterparts in terms of six evaluation factors. Meanwhile, the network outputs are in good agreement with the expected meteorology detection results (labels). It is demonstrated that the proposed network would have a promising meteorology observation application with minimal effort on network variables or parameter changes.