Infrared Dim and Small Target Detection Based on Stable Multisubspace Learning in Heterogeneous Scene

Infrared (IR) dim and small target detection in a highly complex background play an important role in many applications, and remain a challenging problem. In this paper, a novel method named stable multisubspace learning is presented to deal with this problem. The new method takes into account the inner structure of actual images so that it overcomes the shortage of the traditional method. First, by analyzing the multisubspace structure of heterogeneous background data, a corresponding image model is proposed using subspace learning strategy. This model is also stable to noise interference. Second, an efficient optimization algorithm is designed to solve the proposed IR image model. By adding the proper postprocessing procedure, we can get the detection result. Experiments on simulation scenes and real scenes show that the proposed method has superior detection ability under heterogeneous background.