Small maritime target detection through false color fusion

Small maritime target detection through false color fusion

TNO Defensie en Veiligheid
Toet, A.
Wu, T.

DeWeert, M.J. (editor)
Saito, T.T. (editor)

2008

We present an algorithm that produces a fused false color representation of a combined multiband IR and visual imaging system for maritime applications. Multispectral IR imaging techniques are increasingly deployed in maritime operations, to detect floating mines or to find small dinghies and swimmers during search and rescue operations. However, maritime backgrounds usually contain a large amount of clutter that severely hampers the detection of small targets. Our new algorithm deploys the correlation between the target signatures in two different IR frequency bands (3-5 and 8-12 ìm) to construct a fused IR image with a reduced amount of clutter. The fused IR image is then combined with a visual image in a false color RGB representation for display to a human operator. The algorithm works as follows. First, both individual IR bands are filtered with a morphological opening top-hat transform to extract small details. Second, a common image is extracted from the two filtered IR bands, and assigned to the red channel of an RGB image. Regions of interest that appear in both IR bands remain in this common image, while most uncorrelated noise details are filtered out. Third, the visual band is assigned to the green channel and, after multiplication with a constant (typically 1.6) also to the blue channel. Fourth, the brightness and colors of this intermediate false color image are renormalized by adjusting its first order statistics to those of a representative reference scene. The result of these four steps is a fused color image, with naturalistic colors (bluish sky and grayish water), in which small targets are clearly visible. Keywords: target detection; false color fusion, small targets, clutter, image fusion

Colour
image fusion
target detection
Clutter
False color fusion
Image fusion
Small targets
Target detection
Algorithms
Boolean functions
Computer networks
Evolutionary algorithms
Frequency bands
Image segmentation
Imaging systems
Imaging techniques
Mathematical transformations
Optical properties
Optics
Optoelectronic devices
Photonics
Regression analysis
Scheduling algorithms
Security systems
Targets
color imaging
False color
Far-infrared frequency
First order statistics
Floating mines
Homeland security
IR bands
Maritime operations
Morphological opening
Multi bands
Multi-spectral
Search and rescue operations
Small targets
Target detections
target signatures
Uncorrelated noise
visual imaging
Iridium

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a98754b3-cf57-4818-88f2-0c94187fe1da

https://doi.org/10.1117/12.773279

22171

9780819471369

Optics and Photonics in Global Homeland Security IV, 17 March 2008 through 20 March 2008, Orlando, FL, 6945 (6945)

Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering

conference paper