Patent Document ID: 8558891
Application ID: 12996597
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for detecting an object in a scene situated in a determined angular sector, and capable of comprising one or more artifacts, comprises a step of scanning the sector the angular width A of which is scanned at an angular velocity θ′, a step of acquiring digital images of the scene at a rate f by means of a matrix detector, these images comprising pixels and covering an instantaneous field of angular width “a”, and further comprising the following steps of processing the acquired images, in batches of N consecutive images where N=af/θ′: dividing the N images into P groups of images, P being an integer greater than 1, for each group p, p being between 1 and P, accumulating the images of the group so as to obtain an accumulated image I p , for each image I p , selecting the pixels which satisfy a determined detection criterion, for each image I p comprising at least one selected pixel, called the start-of-confirmation image, carrying out a temporal confirmation step which comprises the following substeps: applying a temporal confirmation criterion by comparing to a predetermined number K (where K<=P) the number k of times that this selected pixel in the starting image or one of its adjacent pixels has been selected in the subsequent I p images, the selected pixel in the starting image being counted in k: this pixel will be considered to be that of an object if k≧K, reiterating this temporal confirmation criterion for all the pixels selected in this starting image as far as those pixels have not already been taken into account in a calculation of k.