CenterADNet: Infrared Video Target Detection Based on Central Point Regression

Abstract

Infrared video target detection is a fundamental technology within infrared warning and tracking systems. In long-distance infrared remote sensing images, targets often manifest as circular spots or even single points. Due to the weak and similar characteristics of the target to the background noise, the intelligent detection of these targets is extremely complex. Existing deep learning-based methods are affected by the downsampling of image features by convolutional neural networks, causing the features of small targets to almost disappear. So, we propose a new infrared video weak-target detection network based on central point regression. We focus on suppressing the image background by fusing the different features between consecutive frames with the original image features to eliminate the background’s influence. We also employ high-resolution feature preservation and incorporate a spatial–temporal attention module into the network to capture as many target features as possible and improve detection accuracy. Our method achieves superior results on the infrared image weak aircraft target detection dataset proposed by the National University of Defense Technology, as well as on the simulated dataset generated based on real-world observation. This demonstrates the efficiency of our approach for detecting weak point targets in infrared continuous images.