Improved motion information-based infrared dim target tracking algorithms

Accurate and fast tracking of infrared (IR) dim target has very important meaning for infrared precise guidance, early warning, video surveillance, etc. However, under complex backgrounds, such as clutter, varying illumination, and occlusion, the traditional tracking method often converges to a local maximum and loses the real infrared target. To cope with these problems, three improved tracking algorithm based on motion information are proposed in this paper, namely improved mean shift algorithm, improved Optical flow method and improved Particle Filter method. The basic principles and the implementing procedure of these modified algorithms for target tracking are described. Using these algorithms, the experiments on some real-life IR and color images are performed. The whole algorithm implementing processes and results are analyzed, and those algorithms for tracking targets are evaluated from the two aspects of subjective and objective. The results prove that the proposed method has satisfying tracking effectiveness and robustness. Meanwhile, it has high tracking efficiency and can be used for real-time tracking.