Estimating parameters of point sources in onboard IR-sensors using statistically linearized model

This paper describes the new method for quick estimating impulse parameters from light point sources for their detection and coordinates estimation in onboard infrared (IR) sensors. It is considered the case when the IR-sensor has the line of photoelements with interlaced photosensitive squares; moreover, the diameter of the light spot from the point source and the size of the photoelement are equal to each other. The method uses the matching filter based on the statistically linearized model of impulses appearing in corresponding electronic channels. The model allows calculating the estimators of impulse magnitude and position directly taking into consideration small quantity of samples for channel impulses, voltage shifts and correlated white noise for each photoelement. The numerical analysis has shown that the suggested method provides good accuracy for weak channel impulses that allows successfully detecting the point source and estimating its rough coordinates.