Target identification performance as a function of temporal and fixed pattern noise

With the increased interest and use of staring IR focal plane arrays, the c haracterization of fixed pattern noise in task performance is becoming more important. Past work includes theoretical treatments and laboratory measur ements to describe the characteristics of fixed pattern noise on target acq uisition performance. This is the first target acquisition experiment that describes the relative effects of fixed pattern noise and temporal noise on target identification. Static IR tank images are processed with six differ ent levels of fixed pattern noise and six different levels of temporal nois e. A perception experiment is performed where 10 U.S. Army soldiers were ta sked to identify the tanks through the combinations of noise. Additive nois e was applied in both Gaussian and uniform distributions. The results enabl e a direct comparison between the effects of fixed pattern noise and tempor al noise on target identification. (C) 2001 Society of Photo-Optical Instru mentation Engineers.