• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.146-158
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• 2022

The detector of a focal-plane-array mid-wave infrared (MWIR) camera has different response characteristics for each detector pixel, resulting in nonuniformity between detector pixels. In addition, image nonuniformity occurs due to heat generation inside the camera during operation. To solve this problem, in the process of camera manufacturing it is common to use a gain-and-offset table generated from a blackbody to correct the difference between detector pixels. One method of correcting nonuniformity due to internal heat generation during the operation of the camera generates a new offset value based on input frame images. This paper proposes a technique for dividing an input image into block image patches and generating offset values using only homogeneous patches, to correct the nonuniformity that occurs during camera operation. The proposed technique may not only generate a nonuniformity-correction offset that can prevent motion marks due to camera-gaze movement of the acquired image, but may also improve nonuniformity-correction performance with a small number of input images. Experimental results show that distortion such as flow marks does not occur, and good correction performance can be confirmed even with half the number of input images or fewer, compared to the traditional method.