The conventional area weighted average temperature (AWAT) (Delta) T is a primary performance measure for characterizing target/background scenes. However, the AWAT definition is widely recognized as being inadequate for representing observer sensitivity in many target detection and acquisition tasks. This situation is particularly true for targets which are at short ranges relative to the observer or viewed through powered optics. In these cases the mid and high spatial frequency components provide distinctive cue features which dominate over the average or aggregate characteristics of the target. The authors examine alternative definitions of (Delta) T in order to identify more robust and accurate metrics for the evaluation of sensor and signature countermeasure performance. The analysis indicates that target/background scene descriptions using simple average parameters such as the mean and standard deviation are not sufficient for characterizing imaging sensor performance against targets with internal texture and contrast gradients in background clutter.

Date Published: 31 August 1993
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 1969, Infrared Imaging Systems: Design, Analysis, Modeling, and Testing IV, (31 August 1993); doi: 10.1117/12.154736

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1969:
Infrared Imaging Systems: Design, Analysis, Modeling, and Testing IV
Gerald C. Holst, Editor(s)