Infrared Object Detection

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Overview

Infrared object detection finds objects from heat patterns, helping perception when visible-light images are dark, obscured, or low contrast, and supporting tasks such as driving, aerial surveillance, and industrial monitoring. Methods include multiscale and edge-aware networks for small targets, CNN and transformer detectors, and visible–infrared fusion using alignment, reliability gating, frequency-aware features, or cross-modal distillation. Benchmarks such as KAIST, FLIR, LLVIP, M3FD, and DroneVehicle evaluate performance across pedestrians, vehicles, and varied conditions; synthetic thermal data and RGB-to-IR translation are also used to address limited annotations. A central challenge is balancing the complementary information from multiple sensors against misalignment, domain shifts, unreliable inputs, and the cost of real-time deployment.

Latest papers

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33 papers6 papers in the last four weeks, up 20% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. The Paired Thermal Channel Is Two Orthogonal Axes: A Controlled Attribution Study of Calibration Cost and Detection Gain in Infrared Person Detection

    Oct 23, 2026Tian Zhang, Yang Chen, Bing Bai +3Infrared Object DetectionThermal Imaging

    School of Information Engineering, Shandong Management University, Jinan, China. · School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. · School of Aeronautics, Shandong Jiaotong University, Jinan, China. +1

  2. Stereo LWIR-RGB Automatic Labeling for Low-Light Camera-Based VRU Detection

    Oct 16, 2026Dimitrios Bouzoulas, Pyry Jäppinen, Pejman Habibiroudkenar +2Autonomous Driving PerceptionObject Detection

    Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

  3. Traditional and Recent Approaches for Infrared Small Target Detection : Overview, Challenges and Perspectives (Part 1)

    Oct 13, 2026Thierry Bouwmans, Anastasia Zakharova, Belmar Garcia +3Infrared Small Target DetectionInfrared Object Detection

    Laboratoire MIA La Rochelle Université, La Rochelle, 17000, France · ISEN Toulon , Toulon, , France · Laboratoire L3i La Rochelle Université, La Rochelle, 17000, France +1

  4. Towards Privacy-Preserving Thermal Human Perception from Dataset to Deployment

    Oct 10, 2026Kailai Sun, Yue Cui, Xinwei Wang +8Thermal ImagingInfrared Object Detection

    Urban Mobility Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States · Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre (SMART), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Singapore 138602 · Chongqing General Hospital, Chongqing University, Chongqing 401147, China +4

  5. Analysis of SWIR Imaging Detection Performance Under Adverse Environmental Conditions for Autonomous Driving Systems

    Oct 5, 2026Rohan Mehra, Alexandre Riffard, Yannis Loumouamou +1Multispectral Object DetectionInfrared Object Detection

    Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont Auvergne INP, CNRS, Institut Pascal, F-63000 Clermont-Ferrand, France

  6. ReDiffNet: Differential RGB-Infrared Learning for Low-Light UAV Oriented Vehicle Detection

    Oct 4, 2026Qifan Zhang, Ziran Zhou, Ruijie Li +4Remote Sensing Small Object DetectionInfrared Object Detection

    Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China · The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China · Hubei University of Economics, Wuhan, China

  7. Synthetic Thermal Image Generation for Real-Time Animal Detection Under Low-Visibility Conditions

    Sep 26, 2026James Momoh, Khandaker Mamun AhmedInfrared Object DetectionThermal Imaging

    The Beacom College of Computer and Cyber Sciences, Dakota State University

  8. FoCal: Frequency-Oriented Cross-Modal Interaction and Spectral Calibration for Aerial Visible-Infrared Object Detection

    Sep 24, 2026Ben Liang, Chao Sui, Junqi Bai +4Multispectral Object DetectionInfrared Object Detection

    School of Electronic and Optical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China · 28th Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, Nanjing 210007, China · School of Electronic Science and Technology, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200083, China +1

  9. Aligned Consensus Teaching for Label-Efficient Oriented Object Detection in Weakly-Aligned Visible-Infrared Imagery

    Sep 16, 2026Qi Ming, Xiaxin Yuan, Jiahuan Zhou +6Object DetectionInfrared Object Detection

    Beijing University of Technology · University of Science and Technology of China · Peking University +5

  10. RGB-to-IR image translation for infrared vehicle detection in unseen UAV domains

    Sep 2, 2026Thijs A. Eker, Ella P. Fokkinga, Jan Erik van Woerden +4Infrared Object DetectionSynthetic Data Generation

    TNO - Intelligent Imaging, Oude Waalsdorperweg 63, the Hague, the Netherlands

  11. Physical Adversarial Examples for Person Detectors in Thermal Images Based on 3D Modeling

    Aug 31, 2026Xiaopei Zhu, Siyuan Huang, Zhanhao Hu +3Thermal ImagingAdversarial Patch Attacks

    Department of Computer Science and Technology, Institute for Artificial Intelligence, BNRist, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China · Chinese Institute for Brain Research (CIBR), Beijing 100010, China

  12. A2DINOv3: Rethinking Multi-Modal Object Detection via Socialized Collaboration

    Aug 21, 2026Jiekang Feng, Zhihe Fan, Yunqi Zhu +6Multispectral Object DetectionInfrared Object Detection

    School of Artificial Intelligence, Tianjin University · School of Sports Training, Tianjin University of Sport · School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales +2

  13. Training with synthetic data for drone detection in thermal imagery

    Aug 18, 2026Tanel Liiv, Sander Soodla, Nzamba Bignoumba +2Infrared Object DetectionSynthetic Data Pretraining

    Marduk Technologies OÜ, Tallinn, Estonia · Intelligent Imaging, TNO Defence, Safety and Security, The Hague, The Netherlands

  14. EGM-Det: Entropy-Guided Multimodal Adaptive Fusion for UAV RGB-IR Object Detection

    Aug 12, 2026Cunzheng Fan, Dawei Yan, Guanlin Wang +4Infrared Object DetectionMulti-Scale Feature Fusion

    School of Cybersecurity, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China · School of Automation and Software Engineering, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China

  15. InterPruner: Interactive Structured Pruning via Taylor-Implicit Criterion and Language-Prior Modulator for Multimodal Object Detection

    Aug 11, 2026Qi Ming, Zihan Yang, Shaoguang Huang +6Multispectral Object DetectionInfrared Object Detection

    Beijing University of Technology · Southwest University · China University of Geosciences Wuhan +5

  16. Bridging Severe Cross-Modal Misalignment: End-to-End Visible-Infrared Object Detection via Explicit Feature-Domain Affine Registration

    Aug 11, 2026Qi Ming, Yuyang Wang, Mingjing Zhao +7Multispectral Object DetectionCross-Modal Alignment

    Beijing University of Technology, China · Central South University, China · Beijing Electronics Science & Technology Institute +4

  17. RegisterBridgeMM: A Register-Centric Framework for RGB-Infrared Object Detection

    Aug 5, 2026Zian Wang, Hangchuan Liang, Yuehua Chen +4Multi-Source Image FusionInfrared Object Detection

    Jilin University, China · Taiyuan University of Technology, China · Shenzhen University, China

  18. DRPFNet: Dual-domain Residual Progressive Fusion Network for RGB-Thermal Object Detection

    Aug 4, 2026Zian Wang, Changchun LiMultispectral Object DetectionInfrared Object Detection

    College of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University, China

  19. LDFE: Laplacian Decoupled Feature Enhancement Block for Dual-Stream CNN-based RGB-IR Object Detection

    Jul 9, 2026Wenhao Dong, Xiaoyan Luo, Linlin Yang +4Multispectral Object DetectionInfrared Object Detection

    Beihang University, Beijing, 102206, China · State Key Laboratory of High-Efficiency Reusable Aerospace Transportation Technology, The School of Astronautics, Beihang University, Beijing, 102206, China · The National Key Laboratory of Integrated Air-Ground Navigation Technologies, The School of Astronautics, Beihang University, Beijing, 102206, China +7

  20. InfraNet: Quality-Aware RGB Guidance for Efficient Infrared Object Detection

    Jul 4, 2026Zichao Feng, Haodong Zhu, Jingying Yang +8Efficient Multimodal InferenceMultimodal Robustness

    Beihang University, Beijing, China · Zhongguancun Academy, Beijing, China · Communication University of China, Beijing, China +1

  21. Descriptor: LYNRED Mobility Dataset Multimodal Detection Subset (LYNRED-MDS)

    Jul 2, 2026Loïc Arbez, Jessy Matias, Xavier Brenière +2Autonomous Driving DatasetsAutonomous Driving Benchmarks

    Thoth · INRIA center at University Grenoble Alpes, 38330 Montbonnot-Saint-Martin, France · Lynred, 38113, Veurey-Voroize, France +2

  22. FreqKD: Frequency-Decoupled Cross-Modal Knowledge Distillation for Infrared Object Detection

    Jun 10, 2026Keval Thaker, Venkatraman Narayanan, Abdalmalek Aburaddaha +1Cross-Modal Knowledge DistillationMultispectral Object Detection

    University of Michigan-Dearborn 4901 Evergreen Rd Dearborn, MI 48128, USA

  23. Dual-Integrated Low-Latency Single-Lens Infrared Computational Imaging for Object Detection

    May 21, 2026Xuquan Wang, Guishuo Yang, Dapeng Yan +5Infrared Object DetectionComputational Imaging

    MOE Key Laboratory of Advanced Micro-Structured Materials, the Institute of Precision Optical Engineering, School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University, and the Shanghai Frontiers Science Center of Digital Optics, Shanghai 200092, China · School of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China, and the Shandong Engineering Research Center for Multimodal Computing and Intelligent Decision Making, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China

  24. Comparative Analysis of Military Detection Using Drone Imagery Across Multiple Visual Spectrums

    May 20, 2026Sourov Roy Shuvo, Prajwal Panth, Rajesh Chowdhury +3Multispectral Object DetectionInfrared Object Detection

    School of Computer Engineering KIIT Deemed to be University Bhubaneswar, India

  25. LER-YOLO: Reliability-Aware Expert Routing for Misaligned RGB-Infrared UAV Detection

    May 20, 2026Liming Hou, Yueping Peng, Hexiang Hao +6Infrared Object DetectionMultispectral Object Detection

    Engineering University of PAP, Xi’an 710086, China · Unit Command Department, Officers College of PAP, Chengdu 610213, China

  26. Unleashing the Representational Power of Fourier Shapes for Attacking Infrared Object Detection

    May 18, 2026Yixing Yong, Jian Wang, Ming Lei +2Adversarial AttacksInfrared Object Detection

    School of Information and Communications Engineering, Faculty of Electronic and Information Engineering, Xi’an Jiao-tong University, Xi’an, China · School of Physics, Xi’an Jiao-tong University, Xi’an, China.

  27. Thermal-Det: Language-Guided Cross-Modal Distillation for Open-Vocabulary Thermal Object Detection

    May 11, 2026Yasiru Ranasinghe, Elim Schenck, Florence Yellin +3Open-Vocabulary Object DetectionCross-Modal Knowledge Distillation

    Johns Hopkins University · Kitware · DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory

  28. Tri-Modal Fusion Transformers for UAV-based Object Detection

    Apr 17, 2026Craig Iaboni, Pramod AbichandaniInfrared Object DetectionMultimodal Object Detection

    New Jersey Institute of Technology

  29. Revisiting the Scale Loss Function and Gaussian-Shape Convolution for Infrared Small Target Detection

    Apr 11, 2026Hao Li, Man Fung ZhuoInfrared Small Target DetectionInfrared Object Detection

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA

  30. CCDNet: Learning to Detect Camouflage against Distractors in Infrared Small Target Detection

    Mar 31, 2026Zikai Liao, Zhaozheng YinInfrared Object DetectionInfrared Small Target Detection

    Stony Brook University