Advances in Target Detection and Tracking in Forward-Looking InfraRed (FLIR) Imagery

Abstract

Here we give context to the Special Issue on “Detection and Tracking of Targets in Forward-Looking InfraRed (FLIR) Imagery” in Sensors. We start with an introduction to the role of infrared images in today’s vision-based applications, by outlining the specific challenges that characterize detection and tracking in FLIR images. We then illustrate why selected papers have been chosen to represent the domain of interest, by summarizing their main contributions to the state-of-the-art. Lastly, we sum up the main evidence found, and we underline some of the aspects that are worthy of further investigation in future research activities.

Keywords

• forward-looking infrared imagery
• infrared sensors
• thermal
• automatic target recognition
• tracking
• detection
• classification
• registration
• features extraction
• template matching and updating
• activity recognition