Single-Frame Infrared Small-Target Detection: A survey

TLDR

Infrared imaging offers unique advantages over radar and visible light imaging, and robust small‑target detection is a key technique in infrared search and tracking, yet rapid target and background changes and sensor motion degrade spatiotemporal methods, making single‑frame detection essential. The survey reviews existing single‑frame infrared small‑target detection methods. It provides a comprehensive review of these methods.

Abstract

Compared with radar and visible light imaging, infrared imaging has its own unique advantages, and in recent years, it has become a topic of intense research interest. Robust small-target detection is one of the key techniques in infrared search and tracking (IRST) applications, and there is no doubt that it has become an investigatory hot spot. In real applications, targets and backgrounds usually change quickly with very high velocities. In addition, a rapidly moving sensor platform typically makes the motion traces of the targets inconsistent. These factors reduce the detection performance of spatiotemporal-based methods, and thus single-frame infrared small-target detection is even more essential. In this survey, existing single-frame infrared small-target detection methods are comprehensively reviewed.