Small and dim point target detection in special feature space

Abstract

Deep space exploration is one of the hot techniques currently. The small and dim point target detection is one of the key technologies for space surveillance. In order to detect the small and dim point target without background compensation, we proposed a new method to realize the target detection in the feature space which we special designed. This method makes the centroid location to denote each of all the stars and targets separately, when the reference stars are chosen, the images could be mapping in the feature space which gets from the changing distance from all stars and potential targets to the reference stars, then the stars and potential targets can be divided by comparability measurement function with different motion characteristics, finally by trajectory conjunction the target detection be realized. The method we present here can be widely used in the visible light space surveillance system and infrared systems, and employed not only ground based surveillance system but also space based surveillance systems, which can also play an important role in space debris surveillance. The experimental result shown that the algorithm can fully take into account the characteristics of the fixed star, dim point moving target and noise, and can be effective to detect the moving dim and small in moving background with low SNR.