Local binary pattern and its variants for target recognition in infrared imagery

Abstract

In this research work, local binary pattern (LBP)-based automatic target recognition system is proposed for classification of various categories of moving civilian targets using their infrared image signatures. Target recognition in infrared images is demanding owing to large variations in target signature and limited target to background contrast. This demands robust features/descriptors which can represent possible variations of the target category with minimal intra class variance. LBP, a simple yet efficient texture operator initially proposed for texture recognition of late is gaining popularity in face and object recognition applications. In this work, the suitability of LBP and two of its variants, local ternary pattern (LTP), complete local binary pattern (CLBP) for the task of recognition in infrared images has been evaluated. The performance of the method is validated with target clips obtained from ‘CSIR-CSIO moving object thermal infrared imagery dataset’. The number of classes is four- three different target classes (Ambassador, Auto and Pedestrian) and one class representing the background. Classification accuracies of 89.48 %, 100 % and 100 % were obtained for LBP, LTP and CLBP, respectively. The results indicate the suitability of LBP operator for target recognition in infrared images.