Target Detection Through Robust Motion Segmentation and Tracking Restrictions in Aerial Flir Images

An efficient automatic moving target detection and tracking system in airborne forward looking infrared (FLIR) imagery is presented in this paper. Due to camera ego-motion, these detection and tracking tasks are challenging problems. Besides, previously proposed techniques are not suitable for aerial images, as the predominant regions are non-textured. The proposed system efficiently estimates not only the camera motion but also the target motion, by means of an accurate motion vector field computation and robust motion parameters estimation technique. This information allows accurately to segment each target, and tracking them with ego-motion compensation. Verification of tracking restrictions helps detecting true targets while reducing very significantly the false alarm rate. Excellent results have been obtained over real FLIR sequences.