Visual target detection and tracking in UAV EO/IR videos by moving background subtraction

Abstract

In the last years the Italian Aerospace Research Center (CIRA) designed many versions of on-board payload management software for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), to be used in ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance) missions. A typical required function in these software suites is detection and tracking of moving ground vehicles. In this work, we propose a detection and tracking approach to moving objects that is suitable when the background is static in the real world and appears to be affected of global motion in the image plane. Each object is described as a set of SURF points enhanced with a related appearance model. Experiments on real world video sequences confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach.