Infrared Small-Target Detection Using Multiscale Local Average Gray Difference Measure

In infrared (IR) guidance and target tracking systems, dim target intensity and complex background clutter are some of the typical challenges, especially for the accurate detection of small objects. In this article, we propose a novel IR target detection method based on new local contrast measures. First, the local average gray difference measure (LAGDM) is presented to accentuate the difference between a small object and its local background. Then, an LAGDM map is generated to effectively enhance targets and suppress background clutter. Finally, we use an adaptive segmentation method to separate the object from the background. Experimental results on multiple sequences show that the proposed small-target detection method can effectively improve the signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) of the image, and it exhibits robust performance against cloudy sky, sea sky, and mountain forest backgrounds.