Moving Object Detection and Compression in IR Sequences

Summary

We consider the problem of remote surveillance using infrared (IR) sensors. The aim is to use IR image sequences to detect moving objects (humans or vehicles), and to transmit a few “best-view images” of every new object that is detected. Since the available bandwidth is usually low, if the object chip is big, it needs to be compressed before being transmitted. Due to low computational power of computing devices attached to the sensor, the algorithms should be computationally simple. We present two approaches for object detection — one which specifically solves the more difficult long-range object detection problem, and the other for objects at short range. For objects at short range, we also present techniques for selecting a single best-view object chip and computationally simple techniques for compressing it to very low bit rates due to the channel bandwidth constraint. A fast image chip compression scheme implemented in the wavelet domain by combining a non-iterative zerotree coding method with 2D-DPCM for both low-and high-frequency subbands is presented. Comparisons with some existing schemes are also included. The object detection and compression algorithms have been implemented in C/C++ and their performance has been evaluated using the Hitachi’s SH4 platform with software simulation.

Prepared through collaborative participation in the Advanced Sensors Consortium sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory under the Collaborative Technology Alliance Program, Cooperative Agreement DAAD19-01-2-0008. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Government purposes, notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon.