• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.6_1
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• pp.1283-1297
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• 2023

Mid-wave infrared (MWIR) imagery, due to its ability to capture the temperature of land cover and objects, serves as a crucial data source in various fields including environmental monitoring and defense. The KOMPSAT-3A satellite acquires MWIR imagery with high spatial resolution compared to other satellites. However, the limited spatial resolution of MWIR imagery, in comparison to electro-optical (EO) imagery, constrains the optimal utilization of the KOMPSAT-3A data. This study aims to create a highly visible MWIR fusion image by leveraging the edge information from the KOMPSAT-3A panchromatic (PAN) image. Preprocessing is implemented to mitigate the relative geometric errors between the PAN and MWIR images. Subsequently, we employ a pre-trained pixel difference network (PiDiNet), a deep learning-based edge information extraction technique, to extract the boundaries of objects from the preprocessed PAN images. The MWIR fusion imagery is then generated by emphasizing the brightness value corresponding to the edge information of the PAN image. To evaluate the proposed method, the MWIR fusion images were generated in three different sites. As a result, the boundaries of terrain and objects in the MWIR fusion images were emphasized to provide detailed thermal information of the interest area. Especially, the MWIR fusion image provided the thermal information of objects such as airplanes and ships which are hard to detect in the original MWIR images. This study demonstrated that the proposed method could generate a single image that combines visible details from an EO image and thermal information from an MWIR image, which contributes to increasing the usage of MWIR imagery.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.6_3
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• pp.1179-1185
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• 2017

The KOMPSAT-3A satellite acquires high-resolution MWIR images twice a day compared to conventional Earth observing satellites. New radiometric information of Earth's surface can be provided due to different characteristics from existing SWIR images or TIR images. In this study, the difference image of multitemporal images was generated and compared with existing infrared images to find the characteristics of KOMPSAT-3A MWIR satellite images. A co-registration was performed and the difference between pixel values was minimized by using PIFs (Pseudo Invariant Features) pixel-based relative normalization. The experiment using Sentinel-2 SWIR image, Landsat 8 TIR image, and KOMPSAT-3A MWIR image showed that the distinction between artifacts in the difference image of KOMPSAT-3A is prominent. It is believed that the utilization of KOMPSAT-3A MWIR images can be improved by using the characteristics of IR image.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.6_1
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• pp.1557-1571
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• 2022

Throughout the wavelengths used by remote sensing sensors, the mid-wave infrared (MWIR) has wide applicability in our life such as land, environment, disasters, and military defense. However, due to the unique characteristics of the MWIR, remote sensing techniques in this wavelength region has not been greatly developed. Recently, the applied remote sensing techniques for the MWIR sensors are presenting in a new research field, and various research results are being reported domestically and internationally. In this study, research results on the MWIR remote sensing techniques developed were investigated and related literature records were statistically analyzed. Furthermore, based on the literature review of the current and past MWIR remote sensing techniques and major research results, current status and research trends of MWIR remote sensing are presented.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.22-30
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• 2023

When tracking small UAVs and drone targets in cloud clutter environments, MWIR sensors are often unable to track targets continuously. To overcome this problem, the SWIR sensor is mounted on the same gimbal. Target tracking uses sensor information fusion or selectively applies information from each sensor. In this case, parallax correction using the target distance is often used. However, it is difficult to apply the existing method to small UAVs and drone targets because the laser rangefinder's beam divergence angle is small, making it difficult to measure the distance. We propose a tracking method which needs not parallax correction of sensors. In the method, images from MWIR and SWIR sensors are captured simultaneously and a tracking error for gimbal driving is chosen by effectiveness measure. In order to prove the method, tracking performance was demonstrated for UAVs and drone targets in the real sky background using MWIR and SWIR image sensors.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.423-434
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• 2016

Surface emissivity and its background values according to each sensor are mandatorily necessary for Mid-Wavelength Infrared (MWIR) remote sensing to retrieve surface temperature and temporal variation. This study presents the methods and results of Land Surface Emissivity (LSE) of the MWIR according to land cover over the Korean Peninsula. The MWIR emissivity was estimated by applying the Temperature Independent Spectral Indices (TISI) method to the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) band 4 Day/Night images ($3.74{\mu}m$ in center wavelength). The obtained values were classified according to land-cover types, and the obtained emissivity was then compared with those calculated from a standard Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) spectral library. The annual means of MWIR emissivity of Deciduous Broadleaf Forest (0.958) and Mixed Forest (0.935) are higher than those of Croplands (0.925) and Natural Vegetation Mosaics (0.935) by about 2-3%. The annual mean of Urban area is the lowest (0.914) with an annual variation of about 2% which is by larger than those (1%) of other land-covers. The TISI and VIIRS based emissivity is slightly lower than the ASTER spectral library by about 2-3% supposedly due to various reasons such as lack of land cover homogeneity. The results will be used to understand the MWIR emissivity properties of the Korean Peninsula and to examine the seasonal and other environmental changes using MWIR images.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.9 no.9
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• pp.183-189
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• 2018

This study deals with the design and development of imaging optics having 24mm focal length for MWIR ($3{\sim}5{\mu}m$) with two symmetrical lenses facing each other. We used CodeV in our optical design, and we performed the optimization process to have the resolution and angle of view satisfying the user's requirements. The materials of lenses were limited to two types, including KCIR035 with a refractive index of 1.7589, developed in Korea. The optical system designed in this way consists of two aspherical lenses made of KCIR035 material having the same shape and one spherical lens made of Si. Here, the arrangement of the two aspherical lenses is characterized by having a symmetrical structure facing each other. And this optical system has a resolution of MTF value of 0.35 or more at a line width of 20 lp / mm. Therefore, it is considered that this optical system has the capability to be applied to a thermal imaging camera using a $206{\times}156$ array MWIR detection device having a pixel size of $25{\mu}m$.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.39-55
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• 2019

In this study, we have proposed an improved method to detect forest fires by correcting the reflected signals of day images using the middle-wavelength infrared (MWIR) channel. The proposed method is allowed to remove the reflected signals only using the image itself without an existing data source such as a land-cover map or atmospheric data. It includes the processing steps for calculating a solar-reflected signal such as 1) a simple correction model of the atmospheric transmittance for the MWIR channel and 2) calculating the image-based reflectance. We tested the performance of the method using the MODIS product. When compared to the conventional MODIS fire detection algorithm (MOD14 collection 6), the total number of detected fires was improved by approximately 17%. Most of all, the detection of fires improved by approximately 30% in the high reflection areas of the images. Moreover, the false alarm caused by artificial objects was clearly reduced and a confidence level analysis of the undetected fires showed that the proposed method had much better performance. The proposed method would be applicable to most satellite sensors with MWIR and thermal infrared channels. Especially for geostationary satellites such as GOES-R, HIMAWARI-8/9 and GeoKompsat-2A, the short acquisition time would greatly improve the performance of the proposed fire detection algorithm because reflected signals in the geostationary satellite images frequently vary according to solar zenith angle.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.6_1
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• pp.1299-1308
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• 2023

Forest fires are becoming more frequent and larger around the world due to climate change. Remote sensing such as satellite images can be used as an alternative or assistance data because it reduces various difficulties of field survey. Forest burn severity (differenced normalized burn ratio, dNBR) is calculated through the difference in normalized burn ratio (NBR) before and after a forest fire. The images used in the NBR formula are based on Landsat's near-infrared (NIR) and short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) bands. South Korea's satellite images don't have a SWIR band. So domestic studies related to forest burn severity calculated dNBR using overseas images or indirectly using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) using South Korea's satellite images. Therefore, in this study, dNBR was calculated by substituting the mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) band of Kompsat-3A (K3A) instead of the SWIR band in the NBR formula. The results were compared with the dNBR results obtained through Landsat which is the standard for dNBR formula. As a result, it was shown that dNBR using K3A's MWIR band has a wider range of values and can be expressed in more detail than dNBR using Landsat's SWIR band. Therefore, it is considered that K3A images will be highly useful in surveying burn areas and severity affected by forest fires. In addition, this study used the K3A's MWIR band images degraded to 30 m. It is considered that much better results will be obtained if a higher-resolution MWIR band is used.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.12-15
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• 2018

InSb (III-V compound semiconductor) is used for photodiode to detect the mid-wavelength infrared radiation. Generally the quantum efficiency of InSb IR FPAs(Focal Plane Arrays) is known to be determined by thickness of InSb and transmittance of anti-reflection coating layer. In this study, we confirmed that the C-V characteristics of detector array affects the quantum efficiency of the InSb IR FPAs. We fabricated the IR FPAs with various $V_{fb}$(flat band voltage) values and confirmed the tendency between the $V_{fb}$ value and quantum efficiency of the IR FPAs.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.41 no.9
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• pp.49-56
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• 2004

A new readout circuit(ROIC) for linear HgCdTe 64${\times}$2 two-color Infrared (IR) detector is described. This circuit is based on the buffered direct injection(BDI) technology with high injection efficiency. By using saturation current isolation circuit, the proposed ROIC removed the problems that LWIR(Long Wavelength InfraRed) signal distort when MWIR(Middle Wavelength InfraRed) signal saturates so that new ROIC has larger measurable temperature range about 120k than that of previous circuit and it is also tolerant for dead pixel in MWIR detector. The designed circuit was fabricated using 0.6um 2-poly 3-metal CMOS process. We measured that the designed circuit outputs MWIR signal and LWIR signal simultaneously and saturation current isolationcircuit also operates well. Next, measured noise was about 53uV at room temperature and it can be assumed that designed circuit can satisfy nearly 95% BLIP condition at 77K.