What is the difference between object detection and target detection? Are they the same thing?
&quot;Target&quot; is a military term; historically, that's why it's the word used for &quot;identifiable thing from a radar system&quot;.
So, I wouldn't use &quot;target detection&quot; outside of radar systems, whereas the word &quot;object detection&quot; is generally used in image processing (for anything that isn't a person). I might be a bit alone with this, but if I look at an image and someone asks me to perform &quot;target detection&quot; on that, I'd assume they want to shoot at that.
I think &quot;target&quot; in radar has a more &quot;physical meaning&quot;, as in, it's actually a single contiguous physical object which emits/reflects radio-frequency emissions that should be recognized / tracked as such.
&quot;Object&quot; can be anything, from a round ball, to scattered remnants of a white blood cell; it's slightly less &quot;physical&quot;, more &quot;appearance-based&quot;.  (Of course, reflecting light is still reflecting EM waves; the difference lies in the number of sensor elements in a camera vs radar array.)