Improved Weighted Local Contrast Method for Infrared Small Target Detection

In order to address the problem of high false alarm rate and low probabilities of infrared small target detection in complex low-altitude background,an infrared small target detection method based on improved weighted local contrast is proposed in this paper.First,the ratio information between the target and local background is utilized as an enhancement factor.The local contrast is calculated by incorporating the heterogeneity between the target and local background.Then,a local product weighted method is designed based on the spatial dissimilarity between target and background to further enhance target while suppressing background.Finally,the location of target is obtained by adaptive threshold segmentation.As experimental results demonstrate,the method shows superior performance in several evaluation metrics compared with six existing algorithms on different datasets containing targets such as unmanned aerial vehicles(UAV).

Infrared Small Target Detection Algorithm Based on ISTD-CenterNet

This paper proposes a real-time detection method to improve the Infrared small target detection CenterNet(ISTD-CenterNet)network for detecting small infrared targets in complex environments.The method eliminates the need for an anchor frame,addressing the issues of low accuracy and slow speed.HRNet is used as the framework for feature extraction,and an ECBAM attention module is added to each stage branch for intelligent identification of the positions of small targets and significant objects.A scale enhancement module is also added to obtain a high-level semantic representation and fine-resolution prediction map for the entire infrared image.Besides,an improved sensory field enhancement module is designed to leverage semantic information in low-resolution feature maps,and a convolutional attention mechanism module is used to increase network stability and convergence speed.Comparison experiments conducted on the infrared small target data set ESIRST.The experiments show that compared to the benchmark network CenterNet-HRNet,the proposed ISTD-CenterNet improves the recall by 22.85%and the detection accuracy by 13.36%.Compared to the state-of-the-art YOLOv5small,the ISTD-CenterNet recall is improved by 5.88%,the detection precision is improved by 2.33%,and the detection frame rate is 48.94 frames/sec,which realizes the accurate real-time detection of small infrared targets.

PF-YOLOv4-Tiny: Towards Infrared Target Detection on Embedded Platform

Infrared target detection models are more required than ever before to be deployed on embedded platforms,which requires models with less memory consumption and better real-time performance while considering accuracy.To address the above challenges,we propose a modified You Only Look Once(YOLO)algorithm PF-YOLOv4-Tiny.The algorithm incorpo-rates spatial pyramidal pooling(SPP)and squeeze-and-excitation(SE)visual attention modules to enhance the target localization capability.The PANet-based-feature pyramid networks(P-FPN)are proposed to transfer semantic information and location information simultaneously to ameliorate detection accuracy.To lighten the network,the standard convolutions other than the backbone network are replaced with depthwise separable convolutions.In post-processing the images,the soft-non-maximum suppression(soft-NMS)algorithm is employed to subside the missed and false detection problems caused by the occlusion between targets.The accuracy of our model can finally reach 61.75%,while the total Params is only 9.3 M and GFLOPs is 11.At the same time,the inference speed reaches 87 FPS on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti,which can meet the requirements of the infrared target detection algorithm for the embedded deployments.

CAFUNeT:A small infrared target detection method in complex backgrounds

Small infrared target detection has widespread applications in various fields including military,aviation,and medicine.However,detecting small infrared targets in complex backgrounds remains challenging.To detect small infrared targets,we propose a variable-structure U-shaped network referred as CAFUNet.A central differential convolution-based encoder,ASPP,an Attention Fusion module,and a decoder module are the critical components of the CAFUNet.The encoder module based on central difference convolution effectively extracts shallow detail information from infrared images,complemented by rich contextual information obtained from the deep features in the decoder module.However,the direct fusion of the shallow detail features with semantic features may lead to feature mismatch.To address this,we incorporate an Attention Fusion(AF)module to enhance the network performance further.We performed ablation studies on each module to evaluate its effectiveness.The results show that our proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on publicly available datasets.

Novel detection method for infrared small targets using weighted information entropy

This paper presents a method for detecting the small infrared target under complex background. An algorithm, named local mutation weighted information entropy （LMWIE）, is proposed to suppress background. Then, the grey value of targets is enhanced by calculating the local energy. Image segmentation based on the adaptive threshold is used to solve the problems that the grey value of noise is enhanced with the grey value improvement of targets. Experimental results show that compared with the adaptive Butterworth high-pass filter method, the proposed algorithm is more effective and faster for the infrared small target detection.

Using deep learning to detect small targets in infrared oversampling images

According to the oversampling imaging characteristics, an infrared small target detection method based on deep learning is proposed. A 7-layer deep convolutional neural network(CNN) is designed to automatically extract small target features and suppress clutters in an end-to-end manner. The input of CNN is an original oversampling image while the output is a cluttersuppressed feature map. The CNN contains only convolution and non-linear operations, and the resolution of the output feature map is the same as that of the input image. The L1-norm loss function is used, and a mass of training data is generated to train the network effectively. Results show that compared with several baseline methods, the proposed method improves the signal clutter ratio gain and background suppression factor by 3–4 orders of magnitude, and has more powerful target detection performance.

An infrared target intrusion detection method based on feature fusion and enhancement

Infrared target intrusion detection has significant applications in the fields of military defence and intelligent warning.In view of the characteristics of intrusion targets as well as inspection difficulties,an infrared target intrusion detection algorithm based on feature fusion and enhancement was proposed.This algorithm combines static target mode analysis and dynamic multi-frame correlation detection to extract infrared target features at different levels.Among them,LBP texture analysis can be used to effectively identify the posterior feature patterns which have been contained in the target library,while motion frame difference method can detect the moving regions of the image,improve the integrity of target regions such as camouflage,sheltering and deformation.In order to integrate the advantages of the two methods,the enhanced convolutional neural network was designed and the feature images obtained by the two methods were fused and enhanced.The enhancement module of the network strengthened and screened the targets,and realized the background suppression of infrared images.Based on the experiments,the effect of the proposed method and the comparison method on the background suppression and detection performance was evaluated,and the results showed that the SCRG and BSF values of the method in this paper had a better performance in multiple data sets,and it’s detection performance was far better than the comparison algorithm.The experiment results indicated that,compared with traditional infrared target detection methods,the proposed method could detect the infrared invasion target more accurately,and suppress the background noise more effectively.

Calculation of the heat flux in the lower divertor target plate using an infrared camera diagnostic system on the experimental advanced superconducting tokamak

During the discharging of Tokamak devices, interactions between the core plasma and plasma-facing components (PFCs) may cause exorbitant heat deposition in the latter. This poses a grave threat to the lifetimes of PFCs materials. An infrared (IR) diagnostic system consisting of an IR camera and an endoscope was installed on an Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) to monitor the surface temperature of the lower divertor target plate (LDTP) and to calculate the corresponding heat flux based on its surface temperature and physical structure, via the finite element method. First, the temperature obtained by the IR camera was calibrated against the temperature measured by the built-in thermocouple of EAST under baking conditions to determine the true temperature of the LDTP. Next, based on the finite element method, a target plate model was built and a discretization of the modeling domain was carried out. Then, a heat conduction equation and boundary conditions were determined. Finally, the heat flux was calculated. The new numerical tool provided results similar to those for DFLUX;this is important for future work on related physical processes and heat flux control.

Theoretical analysis of the surface temperature regulation of an infrared false target subjected to periodical ambient conditions

Infrared false target is an important mean to induce the infrared-guided weapons,and the key issue is how to keep the surface temperature of the infrared false target to be the same as that of the object to be protected.One-dimensional heat transfer models of a metal plate and imitative material were established to explore the influences of the thermophysical properties of imitative material on the surface temperature difference（STD） between the metal plate and imitative material which were subjected to periodical ambient conditions.It is elucidated that the STD is determined by the imitative material’s dimensionless thickness（dim*,） and the thermal inertia(Pim).When dim* is above 1.0,the STD is invariable as long as Pim is a constant.And if the dimensionless thickness of metal plate（d,m*） is also larger than 1.0,the STD approaches to zero as long as Pimis the same as the thermal inertia of metal plate（Pm）.When dim* is between 0.08 and 1,the STD varies irregularly with Pim and dim*.However,if dm* is also in the range of 0.08-1,the STD approaches to zero on condition that Pim=Pm and dim*= dm*.If dim*,is below 0.08,the STD is unchanged when Pimdim* is a constant.And if dm* is also less than 0.08,the STD approaches to zero as long as Pimdim* = Pmdm*.Furthermore,an applicationoriented discussion indicates that the imitative material can be both light and thin via the application of the phase change material with a preset STD because of its high specific heat capacity during the phase transition process.

Infrared modeling and imaging simulation of midcourse ballistic targets based on strap-down platform

An infrared （IR） imaging simulation framework based on the strap-down platform is proposed for midcourse ballistic targets. It overcomes the shortcoming of the existing algorithms, which cannot simulate IR imaging from the entire midcourse process. The proposed framework includes three steps, target characteristic modeling, motion modeling, and imaging modeling. In imaging modeling, the staring focal plane is taken into account due to its wide employment. In order to obtain IR images of high fidelity, especially that the fluctuation of the target signal-to-noise ratio （SNR） is reasonably similar to the actual one, this paper proposes an improved IR imaging simulation method. The proposed method considers two critical factors of the pixel plane, occupy-empty ratio and defect elements, which affect the imaging of targets markedly but are neglected in previous work. Finally, the IR image sequence of high fidelity is obtained. And the correlative parameters of simulation can be set according to the given scene. Thus the generated images can satisfy the needs of algorithms validation for tracking and recognition.

Micro-motion dynamics analysis of ballistic targets based on infrared detection

The dynamic characteristics related to micro-motions, such as mechanical vibration or rotation, play an essential role in classifying and recognizing ballistic targets in the midcourse, and recent researches explore ways of extracting the micro-motion features from radar signals of ballistic targets. In this paper, we focus on how to investigate the micro-motion dynamic characteristics of the ballistic targets from the signals based on infrared (IR) detection, which is mainly achieved by analyzing the periodic fluctuation characteristics of the target IR irradiance intensity signatures. Simulation experiments demonstrate that the periodic characteristics of IR signatures can be used to distinguish different micro motion types and estimate related parameters. Consequently, this is possible to determine the micro-motion dynamics of ballistic targets based on IR detection.

A pixel-level local contrast measure for infrared small target detection

Infrared(IR) small target detection is one of the key technologies of infrared search and track(IRST)systems. Existing methods have some limitations in detection performance, especially when the target size is irregular or the background is complex. In this paper, we propose a pixel-level local contrast measure(PLLCM), which can subdivide small targets and backgrounds at pixel level simultaneously.With pixel-level segmentation, the difference between the target and the background becomes more obvious, which helps to improve the detection performance. First, we design a multiscale sliding window to quickly extract candidate target pixels. Then, a local window based on random walker(RW) is designed for pixel-level target segmentation. After that, PLLCM incorporating probability weights and scale constraints is proposed to accurately measure local contrast and suppress various types of background interference. Finally, an adaptive threshold operation is applied to separate the target from the PLLCM enhanced map. Experimental results show that the proposed method has a higher detection rate and a lower false alarm rate than the baseline algorithms, while achieving a high speed.

Deep Learning Based Target Tracking and Classification for Infrared Videos Using Compressive Measurements

Although compressive measurements save data storage and bandwidth usage, they are difficult to be used directly for target tracking and classification without pixel reconstruction. This is because the Gaussian random matrix destroys the target location information in the original video frames. This paper summarizes our research effort on target tracking and classification directly in the compressive measurement domain. We focus on one particular type of compressive measurement using pixel subsampling. That is, original pixels in video frames are randomly subsampled. Even in such a special compressive sensing setting, conventional trackers do not work in a satisfactory manner. We propose a deep learning approach that integrates YOLO (You Only Look Once) and ResNet (residual network) for multiple target tracking and classification. YOLO is used for multiple target tracking and ResNet is for target classification. Extensive experiments using short wave infrared (SWIR), mid-wave infrared (MWIR), and long-wave infrared (LWIR) videos demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed approach even though the training data are very scarce.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INFRARED SCENE TARGET SIMULATOR

A general review is presented of the development of infrared scene targetsimulators; special characters and advantages of scene simulators based on computer-MOSresistor array are discussed by comparing with scaled model simulators; the system principle, structure, key technologies, software and hardware implementation are described.

Infrared image simulation of ground maneuver target and scene

Infrared scene simulation has extensive applications in military and civil fields. Based on a certain experimental environment,object-oriented graphics rendering engine（ OGRE） is utilized to simulate a real three-dimensional infrared complex scene. First,the target radiation of each part is calculated based on our experimental data. Then through the analysis of the radiation characteristics of targets and related material,an infrared texture library is established and the 3ds Max software is applied to establish an infrared radiation model.Finally,a real complex infrared scene is created by using the OGRE engine image rendering technology and graphic processing unit（ GPU） programmable pipeline technology. The results show that the simulation images are very similar to real images and are good supplements to real data.

Dim Moving Small Target Detection by Local and Global Variance Filtering on Temporal Profiles in Infrared Sequences

In this paper, the temporal different characteristics between the target and background pixels are used to detect dim moving targets in the slow-evolving complex background. A local and global variance filter on temporal profiles is presented that addresses the temporal characteristics of the target and background pixels to eliminate the large variation of background temporal profiles. Firstly, the temporal behaviors of different types of image pixels of practical infrared scenes are analyzed.Then, the new local and global variance filter is proposed. The baseline of the fluctuation level of background temporal profiles is obtained by using the local and global variance filter. The height of the target pulse signal is extracted by subtracting the baseline from the original temporal profiles. Finally, a new target detection criterion is designed. The proposed method is applied to detect dim and small targets in practical infrared sequence images. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has good detection performance for dim moving small targets in the complex background.

Infrared Image Small Target Detection Based on Bi-orthogonal Wavelet and Morphology

An image multi-scale edge detection method based on anti-symmetrical bi-orthogonal wavelet is given in theory. Convolution operation property and function as a differential operator are analyzed,which anti-symmetrical bi-orthogonal wavelet transform have. An algorithm for wavelet reconstruction in which multi-scale edge can be detected is put forward. Based on it, a detection method for small target in infrared image with sea or sky background based on the anti-symmetrical bi-orthogonal wavelet and morphology is proposed. The small target detection is considered as a process in which structural background is removed, correlative background is suppressed, and noise is restrained. In this approach, the multi-scale edge is extracted by means of the anti-symmetrical bi-orthogonal wavelet decomposition. Then, module maximum chains formed by complicated background of clouds, sea wave and sea-sky-line are removed, and the image background becomes smoother. Finally, the morphology based edge detection method is used to get small target and restrain undulate background and noise. Experiment results show that the approach can suppress clutter background and detect the small target effectively.

Specific Recognition of Breast Cancer Cells In Vitro Using Near Infrared-Emitting Long-Persistence Luminescent Zn_3Ga_2Ge_2O_(10):Cr^(3+)Nanoprobes

In this paper, near-infrared emitting long-persistence luminescent Zn3Ga2Ge2O10:Cr3?(ZGG) nanoparticles with diameters of 30–100 nm and bright luminescence were prepared by a sol–gel synthesis method. After the surface amination, the nanoparticles were further bioconjugated with breast cancer-specific monoclonal antibody(anti-Ep CAM) to form ZGG-Ep CAM nanoprobes which can specifically target breast cancer cell lines(MCF7) in vitro. The results of in vitro images show that the luminescence signals from the cells treated with ZGG-Ep CAM nanoprobes are stronger than those from cells treated with ZGG-unconjugated antibody, indicating that the prepared ZGG-Ep CAM nanoprobes possessed excellent specific recognition capability. Furthermore, due to their long afterglow properties, the imaging could persist more than 1 h. Therefore, these nanoprobes could not only provide a high specificity detection method for cancer cells but also realize the long-time monitoring. Developed near-infrared emitting long-persistence luminescent nanoprobes will be expected to find new perspectives for cell therapy research and diagnosis applications.

Theoretical Investigation and Experimental Verification of Passive Simulation of Metal Plate Infrared Thermal Characteristics with That of PCM

A one-dimensional thermophysical model is used to investigate the simulation of the infrared thermal signature of mental plate with phase change material(PCM)plate theoretically.The optimized parameters are obtained by the theoretical calculations.Based on the calculation results,a kind of organic PCM is selected to experimentally verify the model,and the good match between the theoretical and experimental results is achieved.The results of this investigation provide the design rules and key materials for the application of PCMs in false target.