Multiframe Infrared Small Target Detection via Novel Low-Rank Approximation and Robust CUR Decomposition

Low-rank sparse decomposition models have become the mainstream optimization framework for multiframe infrared small target detection. Existing low-rank matrix decomposition approximations typically pre-decompose infrared videos into the product of two low-rank matrices to capture the background’s low-rank characteristics. However, such approximations are not optimal and often result in suboptimal background recovery. To achieve more accurate low-rank recovery, we exploit the intrinsic relationship between low-rank matrices and their generalized inverse matrices, thereby improving conventional decomposition approximations. Moreover, to address the high computational cost of applying low-rank and sparse decomposition models to multi-frame infrared videos, we introduce a robust column-row (CUR) decomposition to accelerate the iterative process, thereby significantly improving computational efficiency. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves fast detection of small targets in infrared videos while maintaining competitive detection performance.