Boolean map saliency combined with motion feature used for dim and small target detection in infrared video sequences

Infrared dim and small target detection plays an important role in infrared search and tracking systems. In this paper, a novel infrared dim and small target detection method based on Boolean map saliency and motion feature is proposed. Infrared targets are the most salient parts in images, with high gray level and continuous moving trajectory. Utilizing this property, we build a feature space containing gray level feature and motion feature. The gray level feature is the intensity of input images, while the motion feature is obtained by motion charge in consecutive frames. In the second step, the Boolean map saliency approach is implemented on the gray level feature and motion feature to obtain the gray saliency map and motion saliency map. In the third step, two saliency maps are combined together to get the final result. Numerical experiments have verified the effectiveness of the proposed method. The final detection result can not only get an accurate detection result, but also with fewer false alarms, which is suitable for practical use.