Infrared moving dim point target detection based on spatial-temporal local contrast

Abstract Aiming at the detection of dim and small moving point targets in space-based infrared (IR) imaging systems, a detection method based on spatial-temporal local contrast (STLC) is presented. Firstly, use the spatial and temporal information to estimate the background gray value of each pixel, and obtain two prediction results respectively. Then, the spatial local contrast (SLC) and the temporal local contrast (TLC) are defined according to the original image and two estimated backgrounds. Next, the STLC is defined as the product of SLC and TLC. Finally, a threshold value is set in the STLC for target detection. Four groups of experiments are conducted, and the simulation results indicate that the proposed method has a great advantage in terms of background suppression factor (BSF) and gain of signal-to-noise (GSNR).