Registration of Airborne Infrared Images using Platform Attitude Information

In current warfare scenario stealth and passive threat detection capabilities are considered as prime requirements to accomplish desired mission by the fighter aircrafts. To improve the stealth of an aircraft, the trend is towards detecting threats with the help of passive sensors (Electro Optic or Infrared). Current situation caters for systems like Infra-red Search and Track (IRST) and Passive Missile Warning Systems (PMWS). IRST system is a passive target detection system, used for detecting aerial & ground targets. PMWS is a threat detection system used for detecting missiles approaching towards aircraft. Both of these systems detect targets of interest by processing IR images acquired in mid-IR region. The prime challenge in IRST system or PMWS is detecting a moving target of size typically 1~2 pixels in acquired image sequences. The temporal change caused by moving target in consecutive frames can be considered as one important factor to detect them. The temporal change caused by moving target is identified through absolute frame differencing of successive frames. This principle has limitation in application to IRST & PMWS as the imaging sensor with the aircraft is moving. This motion also imparts temporal change in the acquired images. In this paper authors are proposing a method for removing the temporal change caused by the platform motion in two consequently acquired frames using registration process.  The proposed method uses the platform attitude information at frame sampling times. Authors have analyzed the sensitivity of registration process to noisy platform attitude information.Defence Science Journal, 2014, 64(2), pp. 130-135. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.64.546

Analgorithmic Framework for Automatic Detection and Tracking Moving Point Targets in IR Image Sequences

Imaging sensors operating in infrared (IR) region of electromagnetic spectrum are gaining importance in airborne automatic target recognition (ATR) applications due to their passive nature of operation. IR imaging sensors exploit the unintended IR radiation emitted by the targets of interest for detection. The ATR systems based on the passive IR imaging sensors employ a set of signal processing algorithms for processing the image information in real-time. The real-time execution of signal processing algorithms provides the sufficient reaction time to the platform carrying ATR system to react upon the target of interest. These set of algorithms include detection, tracking, and classification of low-contrast, small sized-targets. Paper explained a signal processing framework developed to detect and track moving point targets from the acquired IR image sequences in real-time.Defence Science Journal, Vol. 65, No. 3, May 2015, pp.208-213, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.65.816