Tracking of infrared dim small target in complex sky background

Abstract

The complex sky cloud background edge and infrared dim small target cannot be distinguished using traditional tracking algorithms, and the deviation problem is produced when tracking the target. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a target tracking algorithm based on Gaussian curvature filter (GCF) and spatio-temporal context (STC) after introducing the STC theory and analyzing the reason of deviation. First of all, the context areas are dealt with GCF which can reserve the image edge and eliminate the noise and the infrared dim small target, so as to obtain the infrared dim small targets accurate confidence map. Then the infrared dim small targets coordinates are confirmed by the confidence map. Four groups of the infrared dim small target sequences in the complex sky background experimental results prove that the proposed algorithm is effective, compared with several classical algorithms, such as TMT, MS-PF and FCT. The proposed algorithm has better performance than the three traditional algorithms on subjective vision and objective evaluating indicator and shows higher tracking accuracy and better real time performance. The infrared dim small target in complex sky cloud background can be effectively tracked with this algorithm.