Quantum-Noise-Limited Signal Processors For Infrared Surveillance

Every improvement in infrared detector sensitivity afforded by modern technology amplifies apparent background "clutter," and complicates the task of designing target/background discrimination algorithms for autonomous surveillance systems. To the extent that background clutter rather than detector sensitivity limits over-all performance, the sensitivity inherent in the detector is not being fully exploited. In this paper we design adaptive threshold point target detectors that operate in the background-shot-noise-limited regime against structured backgrounds.