Effect Analysis of Optical Masking Algorithm for GEO Space Debris Detection

Abstract

A method with high detection rate, low false-alarm rate, and low computational cost is presented for removing stars and noise and detecting space debris with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR>3) in consecutive raw frames. The top-hat transformation is implemented firstly to remove background, then a masking technique is proposed to remove stars, and finally, a weighted algorithm is used to detect the pieces of space debris. The simulation samples are images taken by 600 mm ground-based telescope. And a series of simulation targets are added to the image in order to test the detection rate and false-alarm rate of different SNRs. The telescope in this paper is worked in “staring target mode.” The experimental results show that the proposed method can detect space debris effectively with low false-alarm by only three frames. When the SNR is higher than 3, the detection probability can reach 94%, and the false-alarm rate is below 2%. The running time of this algorithm is within 1 second. Additionally, algorithm performance tests in different regions are also carried out. A large set of image sequences are tested, which proves the stableness and effectiveness of the proposed method.