# MI-DETR: A Strong Baseline for Moving Infrared Small Target Detection with Motion Integration

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.05071 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.05071/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 19 of its 59 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [End-to-End Object Detection with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.12872/) (2020)
- [Deformable DETR: Deformable Transformers for End-to-End Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.04159/) (2020)
- [DETRs Beat YOLOs on Real-time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08069/) (2023)
- [YOLOv10: Real-Time End-to-End Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14458/) (2024)
- [YOLOv12: Attention-Centric Real-Time Object Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12524/) (2025)
- [Asymmetric Contextual Modulation for Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.14530/) (2020)
- [Dense Nested Attention Network for Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.00487/) (2021)
- [UIU-Net: U-Net in U-Net for Infrared Small Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.00968/) (2022)
- [Infrared Small Target Detection with Scale and Location Sensitivity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.19366/) (2024)
- [EMCAD: Efficient Multi-scale Convolutional Attention Decoding for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06880/) (2024)
- [SCTransNet: Spatial-channel Cross Transformer Network for Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.15583/) (2024)
- [RPCANet: Deep Unfolding RPCA Based Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.00917/) (2023)
- [Pinwheel-shaped Convolution and Scale-based Dynamic Loss for Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.16986/) (2024)
- [Visible-Thermal Tiny Object Detection: A Benchmark Dataset and Baselines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.14482/) (2024)
- [SIRST-5K: Exploring Massive Negatives Synthesis with Self-supervised Learning for Robust Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05416/) (2024)
- [Triple-domain Feature Learning with Frequency-aware Memory Enhancement for Moving Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06949/) (2024)
- [Spatio-Temporal Context Learning with Temporal Difference Convolution for Moving Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.09352/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Detecting moving infrared small targets is challenging because tiny, low-contrast targets occupy few pixels and are easily obscured by dynamic backgrounds. Existing multi-frame methods aggregate temporal information across frames to capture motion. However, dynamic background changes can generate similar motion cues, making it difficult to distinguish between target motion and background interference. Furthermore, even when motion cues are extracted, combining them with current-frame appearance features remains difficult. To address these issues, we propose Motion Integration DETR (MI-DETR), a three-stage framework that explicitly models motion and fuses it with appearance features. First, to suppress background clutter while preserving target-related motion cues, Recurrent Interpretable Motion Cue Aggregation (RIMCA) maintains a recurrent temporal state that accumulates motion across consecutive frames, producing a causal and spatially aligned motion representation. Second, to integrate spatial and temporal information, Pathway Mutual Interaction (PMI) preserves separate appearance and motion pathways while enabling bidirectional feature exchange between them. Finally, an RT-DETR-based detector uses these refined features for end-to-end target localization. Experiments on DAUB-R, ITSDT-15K, and IRDST-H show that explicit motion modeling and pathway interaction effectively improve moving infrared small target detection.