{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,30]],"date-time":"2026-07-30T15:40:59Z","timestamp":1785426059097,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":27,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,14]],"date-time":"2026-04-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1776124800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China and Hangzhou Joint Fund","award":["LHZSZ25F010001"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["LHZSZ25F010001"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["62205083"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["62205083"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["62205083"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["62205083"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01h0zpd94","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences","award":["XDA19010102"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["XDA19010102"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Low-orbit thermal infrared bidirectional whisk-broom imaging offers wide-swath coverage and high spatial resolution for monitoring moving targets such as aircraft, but large scan angles and terrain undulation cause non-rigid geometric distortion and radiometric inconsistency between forward and backward scans. These effects generate strong clutter in difference images and degrade small and weak target detection. To address this problem, we propose an infrared small target detection method that fuses accurate registration and weighted difference. First, we propose a hybrid multi-scale registration algorithm that achieves coarse affine registration through sparse feature\u2013point matching and then iteratively corrects nonlinear deformations by integrating a global grayscale-driven force with a local sparse-feature-guided force, yielding a registration error of 0.3281 pixels. On this basis, a multi-scale weighted convolutional morphological difference algorithm is proposed. A novel dual-structure hollow top-hat transform is constructed to accurately estimate the background, and a multi-directional convolution mechanism is introduced to effectively suppress anisotropic edge clutter and enhance target saliency. Experiments on SDGSAT-1 thermal infrared bidirectional whisk-broom data show an SCRG of 18.27, and a detection rate of 91.2% when the false alarm rate is below 0.15%. The method outperforms representative competing algorithms and provides a useful reference for space-based aerial moving target detection.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s26082406","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,14]],"date-time":"2026-04-14T14:24:58Z","timestamp":1776176698000},"page":"2406","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Infrared Small Target Detection Method Fusing Accurate Registration and Weighted Difference"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"26","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0000-1939-0510","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Quan","family":"Liang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, Hangzhou 310024, China"},{"name":"University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Teng","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, Hangzhou 310024, China"},{"name":"University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kefang","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, Hangzhou 310024, China"},{"name":"University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lixing","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, Hangzhou 310024, China"},{"name":"University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7003-1644","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xiaoyan","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, Hangzhou 310024, China"},{"name":"University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2244-8327","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Fansheng","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, Hangzhou 310024, China"},{"name":"University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Intelligent Infrared Perception, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200083, China"},{"name":"Shanghai Frontier Base of Intelligent Optoelectronics and Perception, Institute of Optoelectronics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chen, L., Rao, P., Chen, X., and Huang, M. 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