Miniature air vehicles equipped with lightweight, inexpensive cameras have recently been employed in a greater variety of missions owing to their increased capability and relatively low cost. Unfortunately, miniature air vehicle video is often difficult to watch owing to high-frequency jitter caused by environmental disturbances such as wind gusts. This paper describes a methodology for producing real-time stabilized video by eliminating jitter.Video stabilizationisenabledbyestimatingtheintendedvideomotionthroughthemethodicalselection and tracking of image features from one frame to the next.The effectiveness of the video stabilizationroutineisdemonstratedinareal-worldsurveillancetaskoflocalizingstationary and moving targets on a mobile ground station. The paper also describes the unique mobile platformthatisusedtocreateandrefinetheseminiature-air-vehicle-specificcomputervision technologies.
['David L. Johansen', 'James K. Hall', 'Randal W. Beard', 'Clark N. Taylor']
Stabilization of Video from Miniature Air Vehicles for Target Localization