RISTDnet: Robust Infrared Small Target Detection Network

Abstract

The infrared (IR) small target detection algorithm with a high detection rate, low false alarm rate, and high real-time performance has significant application value in the field of IR remote sensing. IR small targets in complex backgrounds have low contrast and low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Therefore, small target detection is more difficult. Traditional IR small target detection is generally implemented by local contrast methods (LCM), nonlocal autocorrelation methods (NAM), and adaptive segmentation. In this letter, a robust infrared small target detection network (RISTDnet) is proposed based on deep learning. In RISTDnet, a feature extraction framework combining handcrafted feature methods and convolutional neural networks is constructed, a mapping network between feature maps and the likelihood of small targets in the image is established, and a threshold is applied on the likelihood map to segment real targets. Experimental results show that the RISTDnet can detect small targets with different sizes and low SNRs in complex backgrounds and have better effectiveness and robustness against existing algorithms.