Infrared maritime small target detection based on edge and local intensity features

Abstract

In infrared maritime images, small targets are always dim, and there are interferences such as iands and wave clutter. Thus it is easy to miss the real target or generate a large number of false alarms. This paper proposes a detection method based on edge and local intensity features to improve detection accuracy. According to the difference in the similarity of directional edge components between targets and interference, constructing and multiplying directional subbands reduces false alarms. According to the local internal-external intensity features, we designed the candidate target descriptor. The proposed method has higher detection accuracy than several state-of-the-art methods and has stronger parameter robustness through experiments on images with different backgrounds and targets.