Infrared Dim and Small Target Detection Based on Background Prediction

Infrared dim and small target detection is a key technology for various detection tasks. However, due to the lack of shape, texture, and other information, it is a challenging task to detect dim and small targets. Recently, since many traditional algorithms ignore the global information of infrared images, they generate some false alarms in complicated environments. To address this problem, in this paper, a coarse-to-fine deep learning-based method was proposed to detect dim and small targets. Firstly, a coarse-to-fine detection framework integrating deep learning and background prediction was applied for detecting targets. The framework contains a coarse detection module and a fine detection module. In the coarse detection stage, Region Proposal Network (RPN) is employed to generate masks in target candidate regions. Then, to further optimize the result, inpainting is utilized to predict the background using the global semantics of images. In this paper, an inpainting algorithm with a mask-aware dynamic filtering module was incorporated into the fine detection stage to estimate the background of the candidate targets. Finally, compared with existing algorithms, the experimental results indicate that the proposed framework has effective detection capability and robustness for complex surroundings.