The invention provides a small 
infrared aerial target detection method based on non-downsampling 
contourlet transformation. The method includes the following steps of 1, non-downsampling 
contourlet transformation, wherein non-downsampling 
contourlet transformation first-level 
decomposition is performed on a small 
infrared target image, and a band pass sub-band is discomposed into four-direction high-frequency sub-bands; 2, 
background suppression, wherein low-frequency influences are removed, and 
thresholding processing is performed on a high-frequency portion; 3, coefficient mapping, wherein coefficients left by the four-direction high-frequency sub-bands are mapped to a 
gray level space in a linear mode; 4, high-frequency 
image segmentation, wherein four-direction high-frequency sub-band images are segmented into binaryzation images; 5, binary high-frequency 
image noise reduction, wherein small bright 
noise points in the binary high-frequency images are eliminated; 6, detection of related small targets in dimension, wherein the four-direction high-frequency sub-band images get along with each other to obtain a 
small target single-frame detection result; 7, 
small target sequence detection, wherein comprehensive vote is performed on multi-frame images to intercept and capture small targets. According to the method, the problem of small aerial target detection under the complicated 
infrared background is solved.