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.