The image fusion algorithm of single-photon LiDAR and medium wave infrared thermal imager for far weak small target

With the continuous development of sensor manufacturing technology and sensor integration system, image fusion has become a very important research and application direction in the field of data fusion and image processing. Image fusion can integrate the information of two or more images into one image, so that one image can more completely and accurately reflect the information of two or more images. In this paper, the application of image fusion technology of single photon lidar and medium wave infrared thermal imager in target detection, especially in the field of long-range small target detection, is mainly studied. We combine the single photon lidar and the medium wave infrared thermal imager into a system and ensure that the field of view directions of the two are consistent. Then we use the system to shoot many targets of different sizes and distances and focus on using UAVs to shoot from different distances to simulate small target detection, and then fuse the images of the two. For LIDAR point clouds, we extract their PCF features. For infrared image, we extract its wave moment feature. After obtaining the two features, they are combined to obtain the fusion feature. The fusion results show that the image fusion can effectively combine the important information in the infrared and lidar images, highlight the detailed texture of the fused image, and has better visual effect and less image artifacts and artificial noise. Finally, we look forward to the future development trend of image fusion technology of lidar and MWIR thermal imager in the fields of devices, algorithms, systems and applications, and analyze the potential challenges it faces.