Morphological operator for infrared dim small target enhancement using dilation and erosion through structuring element construction

To effectively enhance infrared dim small target, a new morphological operator is proposed by constructing two structuring elements based on the properties of target regions and their surrounding background. By utilizing the two constructed structuring elements, the proposed morphological operator uses dilation and erosion to enhance the target regions and suppresses the surrounding background, which directly achieves infrared small target enhancement. Also, the proposed method is simplified by using flat structuring elements. Experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively enhance infrared dim small target embedded in clutter background.     

Infrared dim small target enhancement using toggle contrast operator

A new infrared dim small target enhancement algorithm based on toggle contrast operator is proposed. Toggle contrast operator is modified and used to construct operators using the image features derived from dilation and erosion operators. Then, based on the constructed operators, the operators which could be used to estimate the clutter background of the original infrared dim small target image are proposed using the same strategy as the definition of opening. Finally, the infrared dim small target is well enhanced through subtracting the estimated background from the original image. Experimental results on infrared images with different types of targets verified that the proposed method could effectively enhance infrared dim small target, which would be very useful for infrared dim small target detection and tracking.     

基于背景粗糙度估计的红外目标检测算法

在分析海天背景下目标红外图像特征的基础上,提出了一种基于背景粗糙度估计的红外目标自适应检测算法.该算法利用LOG算子进行目标基本轮廓检测,将目标的中心点作为区域生长的种子点,通过背景粗糙度估计自适应确定LOG算子参量,完成目标图像分割.与传统检测方法比较,采用该处理方法进行小目标检测及识别过程的预处理,可以有效地减少运算量,提高检测速度,抑制对不必要的种子点进行区域生长,提高了目标的检测概率.     

Method of Calculating the Radiance of Point-Source Target in Infrared Image

In traditional method of obtaining the radiance of target in infrared image, a target is often considered as an extended source. In that way, we only need the atmosphere transmittance, path radiance, and target apparent temperature to calculate the blackbody equivalent temperature of the target. However, in real infrared system imaging process, the target may be so far from the sensor that the target should be taken as a point source. In that case, the traditional data analysis method is not applicable anymore. A new method of calculating the radiance of small target is presented, which is based on the infrared system imaging theory. And the parameter needed to be input in this method is easily obtained. This method is tested by three different imaging systems. They are Thermal Vision AGEMA 900, AGEMA 1000, and Airborne Surveillance Pod Imaging System. The method is programmed into software, IRIDAS (Infrared Radiation Image Data Analysis Software) version 1.0. This software includes infrared imaging system calibration, atmosphere modification calculation, target and background selection and radiance calculation. This method can be used in infrared data anaylsis, infrared system evaluation and testing, target and background characteristics obtaining.     

Detection of infrared small target based on fusion of multi-filters北大核心CSCD

Aiming at solving accuracy problem of infrared small target detection in sky and ocean background scenarios of infrared image sequences, a novel infrared small target detection based on multi-filters algorithm fusion method is presented in this paper. Firstly infrared small target and imaging, time and space characteristics of the corresponding background noise are analyzed. Tophat algorithm with improved Robinson guard filter are then integrated to highlight target and suppress clutter background by using infrared small target imaging features. Adaptive threshold segmentation is used to extract candidate targets, while Unger smoothing filter and multi-objects association filter are used to eliminate random noise and false targets in the candidate targets. Multiple experiments of infrared small target image sequences are implemented, and experimental results show that proposed method can detect infrared small targets at 99% detection rate with high reliability and good real-time performance. © 2017, Editorial Board, Journal of Applied Optics. All right reserved.     

Principal curvature for infrared small target detection

Small target detection in infrared image with complex background and low signal–noise ratio is an important and difficult task in the infrared target tracking system. In this paper, a principal curvature-based method is proposed. The principal curvatures of target pixels are negative and their absolute values are larger than that of background pixels and noise pixels in a Gaussian-blurred infrared image. The proposed filter takes a composite function of the curvatures for detection. An approximate model is also built for optimizing the parameters. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is effective and adaptable for infrared small target detection in complex background. Compared with several popular methods, the proposed algorithm demonstrates significant improvement on detection performance in terms of the parameters of signal clutter ratio gain, background suppression factor and ROC.     

Infrared small target enhancement via phase spectrum of Quaternion Fourier Transform

Small target enhancement is one of the crucial stages in infrared small target detection. In this paper, we propose a new method using phase spectrum of Quaternion Fourier Transform to enhance small targets while suppressing backgrounds for infrared images. This is inspired by the property that regularly Gaussian-like shape small targets could be considered as attractively salient signal in infrared images and the location information of such signal is implicitly contained in the phase spectrum from frequency domain. Formally, in the proposed method, we adopt the phase spectrum of Quaternion Fourier Transform instead of using traditional Fourier Transform to enhance the targets since the quaternion provides at most four data channels than only one for the latter, which could be helpful to broad types of background clutters by adding more information. For the construction of the quaternion, we present a second-order directional derivative filter via facet model to compute four second order directional derivative maps from four directions respectively as the four data channels. This filter is used to suppress noises and distinguish the targets and backgrounds into separably different textures so that it would boost the robustness of small target enhancement. In experiments, some typical infrared images with various scenes are tested to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results demonstrate that our method actually has good performance and outperforms several state-of-the-art methods, which can be further used for infrared small target detection and tracking.     

Non-negative infrared patch-image model: Robust target-background separation via partial sum minimization of singular values

To further enhance the small targets and suppress the heavy clutters simultaneously, a robust non-negative infrared patch-image model via partial sum minimization of singular values is proposed. First, the intrinsic reason behind the undesirable performance of the state-of-the-art infrared patch-image (IPI) model when facing extremely complex backgrounds is analyzed. We point out that it lies in the mismatching of IPI model’s implicit assumption of a large number of observations with the reality of deficient observations of strong edges. To fix this problem, instead of the nuclear norm, we adopt the partial sum of singular values to constrain the low-rank background patch-image, which could provide a more accurate background estimation and almost eliminate all the salient residuals in the decomposed target image. In addition, considering the fact that the infrared small target is always brighter than its adjacent background, we propose an additional non-negative constraint to the sparse target patch-image, which could not only wipe off more undesirable components ulteriorly but also accelerate the convergence rate. Finally, an algorithm based on inexact augmented Lagrange multiplier method is developed to solve the proposed model. A large number of experiments are conducted demonstrating that the proposed model has a significant improvement over the other nine competitive methods in terms of both clutter suppressing performance and convergence rate.     

Infrared small moving target detection using sparse representation-based image decomposition

Infrared small moving target detection is one of the crucial techniques in infrared search and tracking systems. This paper presents a novel small moving target detection method for infrared image sequence with complicated background. The key points are given as follows: (1) since target detection mainly depends on the incoherence between target and background, the proposed method separate the target from the background according to the morphological feature diversity between target and background; (2) considering the continuity of target motion in time domain, the target trajectory is extracted by the RX filter in random projection. The experiments on various clutter background sequences have validated the detection capability of the proposed method. The experimental results show that the proposed method can robustly provide a higher detection probability and a lower false alarm rate than baseline methods.     

基于加权LoG算子的红外弱小目标检测方法研究

提出一种基于加权LoG算子及形态学运算的方法来提高远距离红外弱目标检测效率。通过不同尺度的加权LoG算子对图像进行运算,提取响应值最大的特征图。对图像进行形态学运算去噪,并进行Otsu二值分割聚类。输出目标点在图像上的位置坐标。实验结果表明:该方法与传统滤波方法相比,信噪比增益为36.9,杂波抑制因子为4.7,均比传统滤波方法要好。     

Hit-or-miss transform based infrared dim small target enhancement

To efficiently enhance a dim infrared small target embedded in heavy clutter, a hit-or-miss transform based method is proposed in this paper. First, the gray level hit-or-miss transform is given and discussed. Then, by analyzing the structuring elements used in the hit-or-miss transform following the purpose of infrared small target enhancement, a simple infrared small target enhancement method is proposed by using flat structuring elements and a threshold parameter. The threshold imports the properties of infrared small target into the gray level hit-or-miss transform, which improves the performance of the hit-or-miss transform for infrared small target enhancement. Experimental results on infrared dim small target images with different clutter backgrounds verified that the proposed method was efficient for infrared small target enhancement.     

Infrared dim and small target detecting and tracking method inspired by Human Visual System

Detecting and tracking dim and small target in infrared images and videos is one of the most important techniques in many computer vision applications, such as video surveillance and infrared imaging precise guidance. Recently, more and more algorithms based on Human Visual System (HVS) have been proposed to detect and track the infrared dim and small target. In general, HVS concerns at least three mechanisms including contrast mechanism, visual attention and eye movement. However, most of the existing algorithms simulate only a single one of the HVS mechanisms, resulting in many drawbacks of these algorithms. A novel method which combines the three mechanisms of HVS is proposed in this paper. First, a group of Difference of Gaussians (DOG) filters which simulate the contrast mechanism are used to filter the input image. Second, a visual attention, which is simulated by a Gaussian window, is added at a point near the target in order to further enhance the dim small target. This point is named as the attention point. Eventually, the Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) algorithm is first introduced to predict the attention point of the next frame of an image which simulates the eye movement of human being. Experimental results of infrared images with different types of backgrounds demonstrate the high efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method to detect and track the dim and small targets.     

一种改进的红外图像归一化互相关匹配算法

分析了传统归一化互相关算法在红外空中目标匹配定位时失效的原因,提出一种改进的红外图像归一化互相关匹配算法.该方法将模板和匹配区域之间的纹理相关计算看作一个最优化问题,寻求使图像纹理相关匹配鲁棒性最好的相关基准值,用图像的相关基准函数替代传统方法中的区域均值部分,构造了一种适用于的红外目标匹配的归一化相关算法.实验结果表明,该相关匹配算法对模板中背景部分的变化和非均匀性亮度变化有良好的抗干扰能力,较好地解决了恶劣环境下红外对空目标跟踪中匹配定位出错的问题.     

Real-time visual enhancement for infrared small dim targets in video

Visual enhancement for infrared small dim targets is a standing problem in infrared image processing. Existing approaches cannot enhance the target well and suppress the background simultaneously, especially for targets which are so faint that they are hardly visible. This paper proposes a novel real-time visual enhancement algorithm for infrared small dim targets in video by introducing temporal cues. In this work, Dynamic Programming Algorithm (DPA) is used to detect the target’s trajectory in the video and the target is enhanced through energy accumulation along the trajectory. The shape prior of the small dim target is adopted for background suppression and adaptive merging. Experimental results on real infrared small dim target videos indicate that the proposed algorithm can improve the visual quality of these types of images notably, especially for cases in which the target is hardly visible. In addition, the proposed algorithm takes on average 8.35 ms to process a 320 1 256 image, and thus meets the needs of real-time applications.     

基于双层局部对比度的红外弱小目标检测方法

针对传统基于人类视觉系统的检测方法在复杂背景下容易造成检测虚警的问题,提出一种基于双层局部对比度的红外弱小目标检测方法.首先,通过双层对角灰度差对比度分析机制,充分利用小目标局部对比度的先验信息,提高目标对比度的同时抑制背景杂波及噪声;之后,利用自适应阈值分割法获取待检测的真实目标.实验结果表明,与主流基于人类视觉系统的检测方法相比,所提方法的背景抑制因子平均提高9.3倍以上,信杂比率增益平均提高7.8倍以上,在不同的复杂场景下均具有更好的检测性能.     

层次卷积滤波红外弱小目标检测方法

针对单帧复杂背景红外图像点目标检测算法存在复杂背景下处理效果不理想、处理时间长的问题,提出了一种层次卷积滤波检测算法。主要分为两个部分：第一,根据红外小目标特性,设计一种层次卷积滤波的算子,对图像进行滤波处理,实现图像中小目标的增效和背景抑制的效果;第二,采用基于最大值的自适应阈值方法,对图像进行二值化操作,过滤背景杂波,最终提取到待检测的目标。在大量不同背景红外图像中进行实验,论文算法在背景抑制因子和信噪比增益的性能量化结果上优于现有5种典型红外弱小目标检测算法的性能结果,且平均处理时间仅为高斯拉普拉斯（Laplacian of Gaussian,LoG）滤波算法的30.42%。通过实验对比,表明该层次卷积滤波算法可以有效解决在不同复杂背景下的红外图像中对小目标检测的问题。     

Hybrid multi-resolution detection of moving targets in infrared imagery

A hybrid moving target detection approach in multi-resolution framework for thermal infrared imagery is presented. Background subtraction and optical flow methods are widely used to detect moving targets. However, each method has some pros and cons which limits the performance. Conventional background subtraction is affected by dynamic noise and partial extraction of targets. Fast independent component analysis based background subtraction is efficient for target detection in infrared image sequences; however the noise increases for small targets. Well known motion detection method is optical flow. Still the method produces partial detection for low textured images and also computationally expensive due to gradient calculation for each pixel location. The synergistic approach of conventional background subtraction, fast independent component analysis and optical flow methods at different resolutions provide promising detection of targets with reduced time complexity. The dynamic background noise is compensated by the background update. The methodology is validated with benchmark infrared image datasets as well as experimentally generated infrared image sequences of moving targets in the field under various conditions of varying illumination, ambience temperature and the distance of the target from the sensor location. The significant value of F-measure validates the efficiency of the proposed methodology with high confidence of detection and low false alarms.     

Real-Time Generation of Dynamic Infrared Scene

Although many models have been put forward to realize static infrared scene, they could not generate dynamic infrared scene real time in interactive way. In this paper a new method is proposed to solve the problem. We first model the targets and background of infrared scene based on the hybrid way of geometry and multi-spectral texture images. Then considering the attenuation effect of atmosphere and the noise mechanic of infrared image sensor, we present an infrared depth image model to generate dynamic images of the objects in the scene from different viewpoint. The complexity of infrared dynamic scene is thus reduced greatly and the reality of infrared scene is improved. Finally, real-time walkthrough for infrared scene is successfully realized and the average walkthrough speed is larger than 25 frames per second.     

基于空时联合稀疏重构的红外小弱运动目标检测方法

提出了一种基于空时联合稀疏重构的红外小弱运动目标检测算法。通过学习序列图像内容而构建的空时联合字典能同时刻画目标或背景的形态特征和运动信息;利用多元高斯运动模式从空时联合字典中提取出目标空时字典和背景空时字典,目标空时过完备字典描述移动的目标,背景空时过完备字典表征背景噪声。将连续多帧图像在空时联合字典上进行稀疏分解,然后分别利用目标空时字典和背景空时字典中的最大稀疏系数及其空时原子重构信号,获取重构残余能量差异来区分目标和背景。试验结果表明,由同源的空时字典重构的残余能量小,而由异构的空时字典恢复的残余能量大,该方法不仅能提高序列信号表示的稀疏度,还能有效提高小运动目标的探测能力。     

Separable convolution template (SCT) background prediction accelerated by CUDA for infrared small target detection

This paper presents a novel background prediction method for infrared small target detection (ISTD). Using a separable convolution template (SCT) to accelerate the traditional background prediction by graphic processing unit (GPU), the new method provides a significant improvement in the prediction speed, which enables the prediction process in real time. And experimental results show its high efficiency and practical application over previous work. The mathematical approach proposed here could be extended to accelerate the applications referred to image convolutions not only to the infrared field.