Real Time Video mosaicing for UAV Applications

Abstract

This summary report describes the methods involved in creating a panoramic image, called a mosaic, which can be adapted and designed for UAV applications. There is an increasing demand to expand the field of view while operating UAVs, both in the civilian sector, such as search and rescue, and for military purpose such as threat detection and object recognition. Image mosaics displayed at real time can overcome this inherent problem by expanding the field of view, and if used in conjunction with object detection software will increase the chance of detecting an object or person. Although this project did not complete the main objective of creating a real time video for UAV applications, this project outlines the theory, processes, and presents a solution, which could be further developed to achieve this. The processes involved in creating a two and ten image mosaic, simulated UAV trajectory and real time application are presented. The algorithms used to create a two and ten image mosaic perform quite well when compared to popular online software, with a time of 237ms and 4.2s respectively. This summary report will explore how the created algorithm performs on an embedded system called a Pandaboard. The designed real time application achieves a frame rate of 5-6 Frames per Second with a 400x400 output window size.