Small target detection and tracking based on the background elimination and Kalman filter

The problem of small target detection in infrared images is one of the most important areas of research in passive defense systems. This detection method is classified in the Electro optic systems group. Generally, the challenges of the field are divided into two parts: detection and tracking. 1) Due to long detection distance, the amplitude of target signal compared with heavy background clutter is weak. On the other hand, targets appear with few pixels, so that there is no obvious and usable structural and contextual information. 2) Another challenge in tracking small targets is partial obstruction or closeness of background´s brightness level to brightness level of the desired target (fading). In this paper, first background is removed by subtracting row mean, then the target are tracking using morphological filtering, thresholding the identified targets and finally by Kalman filter.