Sj. Choi et al., CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT OF MISSILE VIDEO SEQUENCES VIA IMAGE STABILIZATION AND PRODUCT CORRELATION, Optical engineering, 34(12), 1995, pp. 3495-3507
An image sequence containing a missile in flight often contains a stro
ng plume signature expelled by the missile along with a weak signal co
rresponding to the missile hardbody. Enhancement of the missile signal
is necessary to accurately track the trajectory throughout the image
sequence. A parametric motion estimation algorithm is proposed for the
passive stabilization of the data set. By stabilizing the image seque
nce with respect to the missile vacuum core, a registered sequence is
produced with the missile located in the same position within each fra
me. Missile contrast can then be enhanced by applying a novel techniqu
e known as product correlation to the stabilized data. Product correla
tion is presented in the context of higher order statistics, and it of
fers a computationally efficient means of obtaining sample moments of
high orders collectively. Simulations with missile sequences acquired
in the IR and visible portions of the spectrum show that image stabili
zation followed by product correlation successfully enhances missile s
ignal contrast, particularly in image sequences characterized by low S
NRs.