Starshade is one of the technologies that will enable the observation and
characterization of small planets around nearby stars through direct imaging.
The Starshade Exoplanetary Data Challenge (SEDC) was designed to validate
starshade-imaging's noise budget and evaluate the capabilities of
image-processing techniques, by inviting community participating teams to
analyze >1000 simulated images of hypothetical exoplanetary systems observed
through a starshade. Because the starshade would suppress the starlight so
well, the dominant noise source and the main challenge for the planet detection
becomes the exozodiacal disks and their structures. In this paper, we summarize
the techniques used by the participating teams and compare their findings with
the truth. With an independent component analysis to remove the background,
about 70% of the inner planets (close to the inner working angle) have been
detected and ~40% of the outer planet (fainter than the inner counterparts)
have been identified. Planet detection becomes more difficult in the cases of
higher disk inclination, as the false negative and false positive counts
increase. Interestingly, we found little difference in the planet detection
ability between 1e-10 and 1e-9 instrument contrast, confirming that the
dominant limitations are from the astrophysical background and not due to the
performance of the starshade. Finally, we find that a non-parametric background
calibration scheme, such as the independent component analysis reported here,
results in a mean residual of 10% the background brightness. This background
estimation error leads to substantial false positives and negatives and
systematic bias in the planet flux estimation, and should be included in the
estimation of the planet detection signal-to-noise ratio for imaging using a
starshade and also a coronagraph that delivers exozodi-limited imaging.