Chinese Journal of Polar Research

ADVANCES IN POLAR SCIENCE ›› 2011, Vol. 22 ›› Issue (3-English): 184-191.DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1085.2011.00184

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Extraction of auroral oval boundaries from UVI images:A new FLICM clustering-based method and its evaluation

WANG Qian1,MENG QingHu1,HU ZeJun2,XING ZanYang2,3,LIANG JiMin1,Hu HongQiao2   

  1. 1 School of Life Sciences and Technology, Xidian University
    2 SOA Key Laboratory for Polar Science, Polar Research Institute of China
    3 School of Science, Xidian University
  • Received:2011-06-28 Revised:2011-08-10 Online:1961-09-30 Published:1961-09-30
  • Contact: MENG QingHu

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Abstract:

Based on the fuzzy local information c-means clustering (FLICM) algorithm, a method for extracting the equatorward and poleward boundaries of the auroral oval in images acquired by the Ultraviolet Auroral Imager (UVI) aboard the Polar satellite is presented. The method iteratively segments the UVI image using FLICM according to an integrity measurement of the extracted auroral oval, and fills the auroral oval gaps based on prior knowledge. In order to evaluate the presented method objectively, the obtained boundaries are compared with the precipitating electron boundaries given by the DMSP satellite precipitation particles data. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method generates more accurate auroral boundaries than the traditional methods.

Key words: Auroral boundary, UVI, Image segmentation, Evaluation