New method for small target detection and tracking

A novel method to detect and track small moving point target in image sequence is proposed in this paper, based on combination of the correlation of multi-frames and wave gate techniques. The detection is divided into two parts: the first part is to identify potential targets in a single frame by using multilevel filter and then to localize the target according to the correlation of multiple frames and the concatenation of the movement. The second part is to detect the target in a selected gate in the following images. In addition, the qualifications to confirm the target and the establishment of the wave gate based on size and moving parameters of the target are stressed in the paper. Based on the experimental results, the method can successfully detect small moving point target and accurately estimate its trajectory in the image sequence with SNR ≥ 2.0. The method is efficient and adaptable to real-time target detection and tracking.