A preprocessing and automated algorithm selection system for image registration

Image registration is a technique for precisely aligning the content of two or more images. It is often used as a preprocessing stage for further analysis, such as automatic target recognition, change detection, and environmental remote sensing. However, there are many different registration algorithms available to the image analyst, and it's difficult to know which one is the best one to use for a particular pair of images. These various algorithms also have a multitude of settings and parameters that must be given proper values for best results. Consequently, it is often difficult to know which algorithm will perform the best in a given situation, under constraints of time or accuracy. We propose constructing an expert system, with rules based on experimental results, that will automatically select the appropriate registration algorithm and perform appropriate preprocessing steps to prepare the images for registration.