Infrared imaging simulation for small target under complex background

In this paper we proposed a simple and effective simulation method for small IR targets under complex background in order to offer abundant test images for the performance evaluation of IR target detection algorithms. This method contains five main steps to acquire a simulation image. The first step is to model the small target according to a real target. The second step is to compute the temperature field. In the third step the irradiance image is computed based on irradiance model with kinds of imaging conditions. Moreover, the effect of IR imaging system is simulated in fourth step. Finally in the fifth step the real background image and the IR target simulation image which is achieved by above four steps are synthesized to achieve the final simulation image. Experimental results show that the simulation images are similar to real images and thus the proposed method has rationality.