Adversarial Defense Technology for Small Infrared Targets

With the rapid development of deep learning-based detection algorithms,deep learning is widely used in the field of infrared small target detection.However,well-designed adversarial samples can fool human visual perception,directly causing a serious decline in the detection quality of the recognition model.In this paper,an adversarial defense technology for small infrared targets is proposed to improve model robustness.The adversarial samples with strong migration can not only improve the generalization of defense technology,but also save the training cost.Therefore,this study adopts the concept of maximizing multidimensional feature distortion,applying noise to clean samples to serve as subsequent training samples.On this basis,this study proposes an inverse perturbation elimination method based on Generative Adversarial Networks(GAN)to realize the adversarial defense,and design the generator and discriminator for infrared small targets,aiming to make both of them compete with each other to continuously improve the performance of the model,find out the commonalities and differences between the adversarial samples and the original samples.Through experimental verification,our defense algorithm is not only able to cope with multiple attacks but also performs well on different recognition models compared to commonly used defense algorithms,making it a plug-and-play efficient adversarial defense technique.

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.

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.

A Novel Filtering-Based Detection Method for Small Targets in Infrared Images

Infrared small target detection technology plays a pivotal role in critical military applications,including early warning systems and precision guidance for missiles and other defense mechanisms.Nevertheless,existing traditional methods face several significant challenges,including low background suppression ability,low detection rates,and high false alarm rates when identifying infrared small targets in complex environments.This paper proposes a novel infrared small target detection method based on a transformed Gaussian filter kernel and clustering approach.The method provides improved background suppression and detection accuracy compared to traditional techniques while maintaining simplicity and lower computational costs.In the first step,the infrared image is filtered by a new filter kernel and the results of filtering are normalized.In the second step,an adaptive thresholding method is utilized to determine the pixels in small targets.In the final step,a fuzzy C-mean clustering algorithm is employed to group pixels in the same target,thus yielding the detection results.The results obtained from various real infrared image datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over traditional approaches.Compared with the traditional method of state of the arts detection method,the detection accuracy of the four sequences is increased by 2.06%,0.95%,1.03%,and 1.01%,respectively,and the false alarm rate is reduced,thus providing a more effective and robust solution.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Small Target Detection Method for Sea Surface Based on Guided Filtering and Local Mean Gray Difference

The traditional small target detection algorithm often results in a high false alarm rate on the sea surface background. To address this issue, a small target detection method based on guided filtering and local average gray level difference was proposed in this paper for the sea surface. Firstly, the method enhanced the details of the small targets by employing guided filtering to suppress the background clutter and noise in the sea surface image. Subsequently, the local average gray level difference of each point in the image was calculated to further distinguish the targets from other interference points. Finally, the threshold segmentation method was utilized to obtain the actual small targets on the sea surface. After conducting experiments on various sea surface scenes, the LSCRG, BSF, and ROC curve were computed for the proposed method and five other algorithms. Comparative analysis with BS, Top-hat, TDLMS, Max-median, and LCM demonstrates the superiority of the proposed method for infrared small target detection on the sea surface.

An Effective Method of Threshold Selection for Small Object Image

The image segmentation difficulties of small objects which are much smaller than their background often occur in target detection and recognition. The existing threshold segmentation methods almost fail under the circumstances. Thus, a threshold selection method is proposed on the basis of area difference between background and object and intra-class variance. The threshold selection formulae based on one-dimensional (1-D) histogram, two-dimensional (2-D) histogram vertical segmentation and 2-D histogram oblique segmentation are given. A fast recursive algorithm of threshold selection in 2-D histogram oblique segmentation is derived. The segmented images and processing time of the proposed method are given in experiments. It is compared with some fast algorithms, such as Otsu, maximum entropy and Fisher threshold selection methods. The experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively segment the small object images and has better anti-noise property.

Improved multilevel filters to enhance infrared small target

We propose improved multilevel filters （IMLFs） involving the absolute value operation into the algorithmic framework of traditional multilevel filters （MLFs） to improve the robustness of infrared small target enhancement techniques under a complex infrared cluttered background. Compared with the widely used small target enhancement methods which only deal with bright targets, the proposed technique can enhance the infrared small target, whether it is bright or dark. Experimental results verify that the proposed technique is efficient and practical.