Small target detection of infrared image based on energy features

A slowly moving small target detection method based on target energy feature of infrared image is proposed in this paper. Mathematical morphology is used to estimate background image. By use of original image minus estimated background image, we get the estimated noise plus target image. The spatial target signature is an optical blur dominated by the optics point spread function. The energy of the area around the location of target often shows intensity maximum or local energy maximum. Based on the knowledge, a target detection algorithm is presented. According to the detection results to real infrared image sequences and Monte Carlo simulation data, it is shown that the method has good detection performance.