Side scan sonar image segmentation based on neutrosophic set and quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization algorithm

To fulfill side scan sonar (SSS) image segmentation accurately and efficiently, a novel segmentation algorithm based on neutrosophic set (NS) and quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization (QPSO) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the neutrosophic subset images are obtained by transforming the input image into the NS domain. Then, a co-occurrence matrix is accurately constructed based on these subset images, and the entropy of the gray level image is described to serve as the fitness function of the QPSO algorithm. Moreover, the optimal two-dimensional segmentation threshold vector is quickly obtained by QPSO. Finally, the contours of the interested target are segmented with the threshold vector and extracted by the mathematic morphology operation. To further improve the segmentation efficiency, the single threshold segmentation, an alternative algorithm, is recommended for the shadow segmentation by considering the gray level characteristics of the shadow. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed algorithm are assessed with experiments of SSS image segmentation.