DATA DRIVEN DYNAMIC DISTRIBUTED-APERTURE WAMI USING A COLLECTIVE OF SMALL UAVS
Abstract
The use of multi-domain platforms is rapidly increasing across different applications. Their small-size, low weight and agile properties can be leveraged to create a swarm of them to cooperatively accomplish desired missions, such as surveillance and reconnaissance, target search, tracking and mapping. We propose using a data-driven approach to develop a novel distributed aperture imaging system composed of a small collection of coordinated drones using a new analytical 3D light-field reprojection (3D-LFR) method for creating a single virtual tiled focal plane array from the multiple sensor focal planes within the swarm. Current Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) systems use a fixed set of precisely pre-calibrated cameras in a rigid mount on a single large platform, which yet results in seams and misalignment artifacts depending on the scene structure and platform altitude. We propose a novel approach without 2D warping, with auto-calibration and using a new analytical 3D-LFR to reconstruct the equivalent virtual focal plane array from the cluster or swarm of coordinated drones. The proposed 3D-LFR approach enables the drone swarm to collectively operate as a single virtual high-resolution and dynamic distributed-aperture WAMI (daWAMI) unit.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 20, 2023
- Source ID
- FA95502210406
Entities
People
- Hadi Ali Akbarpour
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- United States Air Force
- University of Missouri System