HMCNet: A Hybrid Mamba–CNN UNet for Infrared Small Target Detection

Using infrared technology to accurately detect small weak targets is crucial in various fields, such as reconnaissance and security. However, the infrared detection of small weak targets is challenged by complex backgrounds, tiny target sizes, and low signal-to-noise ratios, which significantly increase the difficulty of detection. Early studies in this domain typically utilized manually designed feature-extraction methods that performed inadequately in the presence of complex backgrounds. While advancements in deep learning have spurred rapid progress in this field, with CNN models effectively enhancing the detection performance, the problem of small weak target features being lost persists. HMCNet, which employs a hybrid architecture combining a state space model and a CNN, is proposed in this paper; its hybrid architecture demonstrates the capacity to extract the local features and model the global context, facilitating superior suppression of complex backgrounds and detection of small weak targets. Our experimental results on the public IRSTD-1k dataset and our own MISTD dataset indicate that, compared to the current mainstream methods, the method proposed achieves better detection accuracy while maintaining high-speed inference capabilities, thus validating the rationality and effectiveness of this research.