Electromagnetic Interference Attack Against Infrared Object Detection System

Infrared object detection systems, operate reliably in low-light and complex conditions by capturing thermal emissions playing a critical role in military, industrial, and rescue applications. This paper exploits vulnerabilities of infrared object detection systems under the electromagnetic interference (EMI) Attack. We propose a particle swarm optimization (PSO) method for rapid interference frequency identification and an amplitude modulation approach to target specific injection regions in the detector's field of view, allowing precise control over interference effects. Our experiments on a commercial infrared detector reveal high success rates in object-creation and object-hiding attacks, which achieve 94% and 99% successful rates respectively. We also discuss countermeasures to improve detection system resilience against EMI.