On the Performance of a Radiometrically-calibrated Scene-based Bias Nonuniformity Correction for Infrared FPA Cameras

We report on the performance of a recently developed algorithm for which a limited form of black-body-based calibration is integrated into a special algebraic scenebased algorithm for nonuniformity correction (NUC) in infrared focal-plane arrays. The result of this integration is a scene-based NUC algorithm that is radiometrically accurate. By calibrating only those detectors that are on the array perimeter and relying on the scene-based algorithm to calibrate the interior detectors (using the perimeter detectors as a reference), radiometric accuracy can be achieved without disturbing the functionality of interior array elements. What makes this possible is the fact that the scene-based NUC algorithm used here is algebraic in nature and does not rely on any statistical assumptions on the scene irradiance diversity in the image sequence. In this paper, the performance of the technique will be demonstrated using an IR image sequence. We will provide preliminary experimental results showing the level of radiometric accuracy that can be achieved.