Infrared small target detection based on the Particle swarm optimization algorithm.

One of the most important parts of infrared search and tracking systems is image processing, which detects the targets in infrared images. In this paper, a new infrared small target detection algorithm is proposed. The proposed method uses heuristic optimization algorithms to find small targets in infrared images. In this way, the particle swarm optimization algorithm is used as one of the best heuristic optimization algorithms. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated using real and simulated infrared images. These images include a variety of false response sources like high-intensity edges, cloudy background, complex sea-sky background, and a target close to high-intensity background clutter. The experimental results are compared with the four common methods of infrared small target detection. The experimental results show the effectiveness and performance of the proposed algorithm. Also, the runtime of the proposed method is comparable to other commonly used methods, and this makes it usable in real-time programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]