A Novel Flying Aircraft Detection Method for Wide Area Using Bidirectional Whiskbroom Thermal Images

The detection and tracking of fast-moving and maneuverable airborne targets, over a wide area from space has long been a technical challenge in the field of aerospace remote sensing. Existing solutions often struggle to balance wide coverage with high frame rate detection. To tackle this problem, our team has developed an innovative bidirectional whisk-broom thermal infrared sensor (TIS). SDGSAT-1 TIS operates in a 505 km sun-synchronous orbit, with an imaging coverage area of 300 km × 300 km. The sensor integrates four 512-pixel LWIR focal plane modules covering three spectral bands: 8-10.5 μm, 10.3-11.3 μm, and 11.5-12.5 μm. Unlike other payloads that overlook the importance of reverse scanning, the SDGSAT-1 TIS employs a unique bidirectional whisk-broom technique to generate two images within a short time interval. And a multi-model joint detection method based on physics, geometry informed and state-of-the-art deep detection models has been proposed, which enhances the detection of flying aircraft and substantially reduces false alarms for wide-area. The results demonstrate that the thermal infrared band provides stable radiometric sensitivity for airborne targets both day and night, and the proposed two-frame detection strategy enables reliable moving-target identification across the full 300 km field of view with greatly reduced data volume. This system achieves real-time, all-day wide-area airborne target monitoring and represents a significant advancement in satellite-based surveillance technology.