Three-frame difference moving target acquisition system and method for target track identification

A method of target acquisition comprising:

• registering image information of first and second warped images with image information of a reference image;
• offsetting pixels of the warped images based on the outputs of the registering to align the warped images with the reference image;
• performing a three-frame difference calculation on the offset images and the reference image to generate a three-frame difference output image;
• and
• performing clutter suppression on the three-frame difference image to generate a clutter-suppressed output image for use in identifying a moving target.

A moving platform for surveillance comprising:

• an imager for generating a frames of video;
• and
• a target-tracking system for acquiring and tracking a moving target based on the frames of video,
• wherein the target-tracking system is configured to:
• perform a first registration to align image information of a first warped image with image information of a reference image;
• perform a second registration to align image information of a second warped image with the image information of the reference image;
• offset pixels of the first warped image based on the output of the first registration to align with corresponding pixels of the reference image to generate a first offset image;
• offset pixels of the second warped image based on the output of the second registration to align with corresponding pixels of the reference image to generate a second offset image;
• perform a three-frame difference calculation on the first offset image, the second offset image and the reference image to generate a three-frame difference output image;
• and
• perform clutter suppression on the three-frame difference image to generate a clutter-suppressed output image.