Utopiacompression Corporation

Jason Newton

Joseph Yadegar

Sharath Avadhanam

Anurag Ganguli

Abhishek Tiwari

Prakash Ramu

Hieu Nguyen

He Bai

A method to estimate range to a moving rigid body from a moving platform using a monocular camera. The method does not require the camera platform to maneuver in order to estimate range. The method relies on identification and tracking of certain principal features of the object. The method extracts a silhouette of an object from an obtained image and identifies two principal linear components of the silhouette. A normalized distance between the point of intersection of the two linear components and a centroid of the silhouette is computed, compared to a data set and used to determine a direction of movement of the object.

Maneuverless passive range estimation using monocular image sequences

A computerized aircraft system, such as an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) is provided with a cloud detection system. The UAS includes a monocular electro-optic or infra-red camera which acquires consecutively, in real time, a plurality of images within a field of view of the camera. The system identifies feature points in each of the consecutive images, and generates macro representations of cloud formations (3D representations of the clouds) based on tracking of the feature points across the plurality of images. A cloud avoidance system takes in nominal own-ship waypoints, compares those waypoints to the 3D cloud representations and outputs modified waypoints to avoid the detected clouds.

Passive camera based cloud detection and avoidance for aircraft systems

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Los Angeles, CA, United States of America

Jason Newton