An uncooled infrared camera with embedded real-time target tracking capability

Abstract

In this paper an uncooled infrared camera with embedded target detection and tracking capability is presented. The camera is built upon four main electronic cards. Sensor card is designed to read and digitize the analog output signal generated by the infrared (IR) imaging sensor. FPGA card carries out the control process of the data transfer between sensor card and other peripherals. Target detection/tracking task is on the row image data provided by the FPGA card is carried out on the DSP card. Frame thresholding and differencing methods are used for target detection. Kalman filter is utilized for target tracking. According to the experimental results, camera is capable of performing target detection and tracking tasks in real time.