Research on Blind Super-Resolution Technology for Infrared Images of Power Equipment Based on Compressed Sensing Theory

• Main Authors: Yan Wang, Lingjie Wang, Bingcong Liu, Hongshan Zhao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-06-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: power equipment; infrared image; compressed sensing; blind super-resolution
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/12/4109

Infrared images of power equipment play an important role in power equipment status monitoring and fault identification. Aiming to resolve the problems of low resolution and insufficient clarity in the application of infrared images, we propose a blind super-resolution algorithm based on the theory of compressed sensing. It includes an improved blur kernel estimation method combined with compressed sensing theory and an improved infrared image super-resolution reconstruction algorithm based on block compressed sensing theory. In the blur kernel estimation method, we propose a blur kernel estimation algorithm under the compressed sensing framework to realize the estimation of the blur kernel from low-resolution images. In the estimation process, we define a new <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msub><mi>L</mi><mi>w</mi></msub></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> norm to constrain the gradient image in the iterative process by analyzing the significant edge intensity changes before and after the image is blurred. With the <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msub><mi>L</mi><mi>w</mi></msub></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> norm, the salient edges can be selected and enhanced, the intermediate latent image generated by the iteration can move closer to the clear image, and the accuracy of the blur kernel estimation can be improved. For the super-resolution reconstruction algorithm, we introduce a blur matrix and a regular total variation term into the traditional compressed sensing model and design a two-step total variation sparse iteration (TwTVSI) algorithm. Therefore, while ensuring the computational efficiency, the boundary effect caused by the block processing inside the image is removed. In addition, the design of the TwTVSI algorithm can effectively process the super-resolution model of compressed sensing with a sparse dictionary, thereby breaking through the reconstruction performance limitation of the traditional regularized super-resolution method of compressed sensing due to the lack of sparseness in the signal transform domain. The final experimental results also verify the effectiveness of our blind super-resolution algorithm.