Background modeling for adaptive nonuniformity correction in IRFPA

The performance of infrared focal plane array (IRFPA) is known to be affected by the presence of spatial fixed pattern noise (FPN) that is superimposed on the true image. Scene-based nonuniformity correction (NUC) algorithms are widely concerned since they only need the readout infrared data captured by the imaging system during its normal operation. Temporal highpass filter is popular because of its simpleness and effectiveness. However, there still exists the problem of ghosting artifact in the algorithms caused by blind update of parameters, and the performance is noticeably degraded when the methods are applied over scenes with lack of motion. In order to tackle with this problem, a novel adaptive NUC algorithm based on background modeling is presented. In this algorithm, the drift of the detectors is assumed to obey a single Gaussian distribution, and the update of the parameters is selectively performed based on the scene. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated with infrared image sequences with simulated and real fixed-pattern noise. The results show a more reliable fixed-pattern noise reduction, tracking the parameter drift, and presenting a good adaptability to scene changes.