Research on infrared target tracking adaptively based on second-order differential and template matching

The target is moving and changing in infrared image sequences captured from the airborne platform infrared imaging system. To adaptively track the infrared target which changes from small target to surface target, an algorithm based on Second-Order Differential (SOD) and improved Template Matching (TM) tracking algorithm was proposed. The SOD filter makes full use of the brightness of the infrared dim and small target, the gradient and distance information of neighborhood pixels used for spatial domain filter. The TM makes full use of infrared brightness, ambient background and dimension information to complete the tracking. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can convert adaptively with infrared target’s size changing information, so tracking stability of infrared target under the ground clutter background is achieved. The tracking accuracy and tracking speed are also better than traditional algorithms. The proposed algorithm can be well applied to airborne platform warning on the ground.