Real-Time Non-Uniformity Correction Method for 800 FPS High-Frame-Rate Short-Wave Infrared Images

In conventional infrared imaging systems, non-uniformity correction typically involves continuously reading correction parameters from double data rate (DDR) memory. For high-frame-rate short-wave infrared imaging systems to achieve real-time non-uniformity correction, it is essential to minimize the reading time of correction parameters. Due to the narrow dynamic range of two-point correction and the large parameter storage required by two-point multi-segment correction, it is difficult to simultaneously achieve good correction performance and short parameter reading time under limited hardware resources. To address the above issues, this paper proposes a real-time non-uniformity correction method suitable for high-frame-rate short-wave infrared images. Based on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), improvements are made to quadratic polynomial correction through the design of quantization methods for different parameters to enhance storage bit-width utilization; dynamic allocation of bit-widths between parameters to improve correction performance; and ping-pong buffering for DDR reading to avoid the impact of DDR read latency on parameter reading time. The storage size of the improved correction parameters is comparable to that of conventional two-point correction. Experiments were conducted on a hardware system based on the XC7A100T-2FGG484I FPGA. The experimental results show that the average non-uniformity of images after the improved quadratic polynomial correction is 0.4818%, significantly better than 0.5930% after two-point correction and slightly better than 0.4891% after two-point eight-segment correction. Blind pixel compensation was completed simultaneously with the correction. Using a 640 × 512 area array InGaAs short-wave infrared detector, the highest real-time processing frame rate reaches 800 frames per second (FPS).