PHOTONIC SENSORS
Infrared LSS-Target Detection Via Adaptive TCAIE-LGM
Smoothing and Pixel-Based Background Subtraction
Yanfeng WU
1,2
, Yanjie WANG
1
, Peixun LIU
1
, Huiyuan LUO
1,2
,
Boyang CHENG
1,2
, and Haijiang SUN
1*
1
Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130033, China
2
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
*Corresponding author: Haijiang SUN E-mail: sunhaijiang@126.com
Abstract: Infrared small target detection is a significant and challenging topic for daily security. This
paper proposes a novel model to detect LSS-target (low altitude, slow speed, and small target) under
the complicated background. Firstly, the fundamental constituents of an infrared image including the
complexity and entropy are calculated, which are invoked as adaptive control parameters of
smoothness. Secondly, the adaptive L0 gradient minimization smoothing based on texture
complexity and information entropy (TCAIE-LGM) is proposed in order to remove noises and
suppress low-amplitude details in infrared image abstraction. Finally, difference of Gaussian (DoG)
map is incorporated into the pixel-based adaptive segmentation (PBAS) background modeling
algorithm, which can differ LSS-target from the sophisticated background. Experimental results
demonstrate that the proposed novel model has a high detection rate and produces fewer false alarms,
which outperforms most state-of-the-art methods.
Keywords: Small target detection; L0 smoothing; texture complexity; information entropy; pixel-based adaptive
segmentation
Citation: Yanfeng WU, Yanjie WANG, Peixun LIU, Huiyuan LUO, Boyang CHENG, and Haijiang SUN, “Infrared LSS-Targe
Detection Via Adaptive TCAIE-LGM Smoothing and Pixel-Based Background Subtraction,” Photonic Sensors, DOI:
10.1007/s13320-018-0523-8.
1. Introduction
Owing to the dominant position of the thermal
infrared imaging system to run in dark and low light
environments, infrared cameras have gained
popularity for missile guidance, military night vision,
airborne early warning, etc. Accordingly,
LSS-targets (low altitude, slow speed, and small
target) can be captured due to their hot temperature.
Nevertheless, infrared images are frequently of poor
quality, as a result of salt-and-pepper noises, less
texture, and non-uniformity noise, which render it
rather difficult to detect LSS-targets. To make things
more intricate, LSS-targets without fixed moving
trajectories are often submerged in heavy noises or
complex backgrounds. Thus, it is a concerned and
challenging topic in the infrared detection field.
In order to detect such LSS-targets accurately,
scholars in various countries have done a lot of
researches and put forward diverse algorithms. Hu et
al. [1] used the non-local mean filter based on
circular mask to establish a background estimation
model. By linking the gray scale distribution of the
image to the temporal information, infrared dim
targets can be extracted successfully. Yang et al. [2]
simplified a two-dimensional median filter to a
Received: 15 August 2018 / Revised: 4 October 2018
© The Author(s) 2018. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
DOI: 10.1007/s13320-018-0523-8
Article type: Regular