Temporal-spatial filtering background suppression method based on kernel density estimation

A temporal-spatial filtering algorithm based on kernel density estimation structure is presented for infrared image background suppression in infrared search and track system. The algorithm can be divided into spatial filtering and temporal filtering. Smoothing process is applied to the background of an infrared image sequence by using the kernel density estimation algorithm in spatial filtering. The probability density of the image gray values after spatial filtering is calculated with the kernel density estimation algorithm in temporal filtering. The background residual and blind pixels are picked out based on their gray values, and are further filtered. The algorithm is validated with a real infrared image sequence. The image sequence is processed by using Fuller kernel filter, Uniform kernel filter and high-pass filter. Quantitatively analysis shows that the temporal-spatial filtering algorithm based on the nonparametric method is a satisfactory way to suppress background clutter in infrared images. The SNR is significantly improved as well.