Moving Object Detection and Tracking in Forward Looking Infra-Red Aerial Imagery

This chapter discusses the challenges of automating surveillance and reconnaissance tasks for infra-red visual data obtained from aerial platforms. These problems have gained significant importance over the years, especially with the advent of lightweight and reliable imaging devices. Detection and tracking of objects of interest has traditionally been an area of interest in the computer vision literature. These tasks are rendered especially challenging in aerial sequences of infra red modality. The chapter gives an overview of these problems, and the associated limitations of some of the conventional techniques typically employed for these applications. We begin with a study of various image registration techniques that are required to eliminate motion induced by the motion of the aerial sensor. Next, we present a technique for detecting moving objects from the ego-motion compensated input sequence. Finally, we describe a methodology for tracking already detected objects using their motion history. We substantiate our claims with results on a wide range of aerial video sequences.