Papers for

defense surveillance teams

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Spectral conditional diffusion improves hyperspectral target detection accuracy

SCDM-HTD: Spectral-Wise Conditional Diffusion Model for Hyperspectral Target Detection

Abstract: Hyperspectral target detection (HTD) aims to locate and recognize objects at a fine-grained scale, playing a pivotal role in remote sensing. Despite significant progress, current HTD methods primarily focus on feature comparison while neglecting distribution learning for background-target separation, which can limit detection robustness in practical applications. This paper addresses this issue by introducing a spectral-wise conditional diffusion model that reformulates HTD as a task of generating a detection map. Specifically, we treat background and target confidence scores as training samples and use the corresponding pixel spectra as guiding conditions to capture the distributional discrepancy between background and target through diffusion and denoising. To enhance practical applicability, we propose a lightweight conditional denoising network based on multilayer perceptron to map noisy confidence scores to their ideal counterparts and adopt a deterministic reverse non-Markov chain to skip sampling steps, thereby accelerating the generation process. Furthermore, we introduce a composite loss to improve background-target separation. This loss integrates constrained energy minimization loss to enhance target saliency and suppress the background by maximizing the target response while minimizing average output energy, alongside binary cross-entropy loss to classify background and target using pixel-wise labels. Experimental results on four benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, with improvements in both quantitative metrics and qualitative visual effects.

Fri 23 OctComputer Vision and Pattern Recognition
The gist
Hyperspectral target detection finds specific objects in detailed remote sensing images, but current methods often overlook learning how the background and target differ in overall distribution, making detection less reliable. The authors introduce a new approach that treats detection as a task of generating a map distinguishing targets from backgrounds based on their spectral information. They use a lightweight neural network and a diffusion model to better separate and identify targets, speeding up the process while improving accuracy. Tests on several standard datasets show this method works better than previous ones.
Open → 2610.32768v1

Infrared small target detection methods reviewed with challenges and outlook

Traditional and Recent Approaches for Infrared Small Target Detection : Overview, Challenges and Perspectives (Part 1)

Abstract: Infrared small target detection is often used in different civilian and military applications to detect static or moving targets in scenes like in ground, air and sea surveillance. First valuable research has emerged since 30 years ago and the two last decades witnessed very significant publications in this field following the rise of low-rank and sparse decomposition (model-based methods) and deep learning models (data-based methods). Furthermore, several surveys can be found in the literature but none of them addresses an overall review in this field. In this context, the aim of this paper is to provide a complete survey of the traditional and recent approaches in infrared small target detection. First, we categorize the different approaches found in the literature in terms of the modeling models, i.e mathematical models, machine learning models and signal processing models. Then, we have discussed them in terms of the critical situations that they claim to handle. Furthermore, we present the available resources, datasets and libraries. Then, we conclude with several promising directions for future research. For the sake of reading, this survey is divided into two parts: 1) "Traditional and Recent Approaches for Infrared Small Target Detection : Overview, Challenges and Perspectives (Part 1)" about conventional and low-rank and sparse decomposition (model-based methods), and 2) "Traditional and Recent Approaches for Infrared Small Target Detection : Overview, Challenges and Perspectives (Part 2)" about deep learning models (data-based methods).

Tue 13 OctComputer Vision and Pattern Recognition
The gist
Detecting tiny objects using infrared cameras is important for safety and defense in places like land, sea, and air. The authors review different ways people have tried to detect these small objects, from older techniques to newer ones using math models and machine learning. They organize and compare these methods, explain the tough situations they address, and list useful resources like data and code. This paper is the first part of a two-part review, focusing on traditional and model-based approaches. The second part will cover deep learning methods.
Open → 2610.18276v1

Cooperative drone sensing improves target detection with less data upload

When Weak Reports Matter: Staged Anchored Fusion for Cooperative UAV Sensing

Abstract: Local multipath rejection can erase evidence needed for cooperative sensing. We propose staged anchored recovery: preserve strong-only confirmations, then query compatible weak reports using unused strong anchors. For any number of sensing nodes, we prove lossless residual screening and derive corroboration and bidirectional cost laws. In 1,024 five-UAV drops, recovery adds 30 matched targets and three false outputs over strict consensus, matching one-pass anchored confirmation's detection counts while reducing weak uploads by 97.4%. Equal-sized cue/report records yield 4.5% less payload than uploading all eligible reports. Independent validation recovers four additional targets with no observed false outputs.

Tue 6 OctNetworking and Internet Architecture
The gist
Detecting targets with multiple drones can be tricky because some useful hints get lost when drones try to agree on what they see. The authors found a better way to keep strong, confident signals first, then carefully check weaker hints connected to those strong signals. This approach helps find more targets without needing to share as much data between drones. Testing showed it recovers extra targets accurately while cutting down unnecessary data sharing a lot.
Open → 2610.07747v1