Digital imaging system for airborne applications
First Claim
1. An aerial imaging system comprising:
- a digital image storage medium locatable within an aircraft;
a controller that controls the collection of image data and stores it in the storage medium; and
a digital camera assembly that collects image data from a region to be imaged and inputs it to the controller, the camera assembly being rigidly mountable to a preexisting step mount on an outer surface of the aircraft.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
An aerial imaging system has an image storage medium locatable in an aircraft, a controller that controls the collection of image data and stores it in the storage medium and a digital camera assembly that collects image data from a region to be imaged. The camera assembly is mounted to a pre-existing external step mount on the aircraft. An inertial measurement system (IMU) is fixed in position relative to the camera assembly and detects rotational position of the aircraft, and a GPS receiver detects absolute position of the aircraft. The camera assembly includes multiple cameras that are calibrated relative to one another to generate compensation values that may be used during image processing to minimize camera-to-camera aberrations. Calibration of the cameras relative to the IMU provides compensation values to minimize rotational misalignments between image data and IMU data.
74 Citations
50 Claims
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1. An aerial imaging system comprising:
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a digital image storage medium locatable within an aircraft;
a controller that controls the collection of image data and stores it in the storage medium; and
a digital camera assembly that collects image data from a region to be imaged and inputs it to the controller, the camera assembly being rigidly mountable to a preexisting step mount on an outer surface of the aircraft. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. An aerial imaging system comprising:
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a digital image storage medium locatable within an aircraft;
a controller that controls collection of image data and stores it in the storage medium;
a digital camera assembly that includes a plurality of discrete monochrome cameras, and that collects image data from a region to be imaged and inputs it to the controller; and
a camera-to-camera calibration apparatus that collects image data from the cameras created by the cameras imaging a target having predetermined visual characteristics, compares the data from the separate cameras and establishes compensation values for each camera that may be applied to subsequent images collected by the cameras to minimize relative camera-to-camera aberrations. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. An aerial imaging system comprising:
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a digital image storage medium locatable within an aircraft;
a controller that controls the collection of image data and stores it in the storage medium;
a digital camera assembly that includes a plurality of discrete monochrome cameras, and that collects image data from a region to be imaged and inputs it to the controller; and
an inertial measurement unit (IMU) that senses acceleration and rotation rates of the camera assembly, and provides a signal indicative thereof to the controller, wherein a first one of the cameras and the IMU are precisely aligned relative to one another by a calibration that includes a detection and minimization of misalignments between the optical axes of the cameras and the measurement axes of the IMU. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. An aerial imaging system comprising:
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a digital image storage medium locatable within an aircraft;
a controller that controls the collection of image data and stores it in the storage medium;
a digital camera assembly that collects image data from a region to be imaged and inputs it to the controller; and
an inertial measurement unit (IMU) that senses acceleration and rotation rates of the camera assembly, and provides a signal indicative thereof to the controller, the signal from the IMU being used by the controller to trigger image collection by the camera assembly when the signal indicates that the camera assembly is in a predetermined orientation for collecting said image data. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24)
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25. A method performing aerial imaging, the method comprising:
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providing a digital image storage medium locatable within an aircraft;
controlling, with a controller, the collection of image data and storage of the collected data in the storage medium; and
imaging a region of interest with a digital camera assembly that inputs the resulting image data to the controller, the camera assembly being rigidly mounted to a preexisting step mount on an outer surface of the aircraft. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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35. A method of calibrating an aerial imaging system having a digital image storage medium locatable within an aircraft, a controller that controls the collection of image data and stores it in the storage medium, and a digital camera assembly that includes a plurality of discrete monochrome cameras, and that collects image data from a region to be imaged and inputs the data to the controller, the method comprising:
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providing an imaging target having predetermined visual characteristics;
collecting image data from the cameras created by the cameras imaging the target;
evaluating the image data from a first camera to determine positional aberrations relative to the image data of a second camera; and
generating compensation values for the first camera that may be applied to subsequent images collected by the first camera to compensate for said aberrations. - View Dependent Claims (36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42)
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43. A method of calibrating an aerial imaging system having a digital image storage medium locatable within an aircraft, a controller that controls collection of image data and stores it in the storage medium, a digital camera assembly that includes a plurality of discrete monochrome cameras and that collects image data from a region to be imaged and inputs it to the controller, an inertial measurement unit (IMU) that is rigidly fixed in position relative to the camera assembly and that senses acceleration and rotation rates of the camera assembly and provides a signal indicative thereof to the controller, the method comprising:
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providing an imaging target having predetermined visual characteristics;
locating the target and the camera assembly in a common level plane;
imaging the target and using resulting target image data to precisely align rotational axes of the camera assembly relative to the target;
collecting IMU data indicative of camera assembly orientation;
comparing the target image data to the IMU data to determine misalignments therebetween; and
generating compensation values that may be applied during subsequent image processing to compensate for said misalignments. - View Dependent Claims (44, 45, 46, 47)
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48. A method of performing aerial imaging, the method comprising:
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providing a digital image storage medium locatable within an aircraft;
controlling, with a controller, the collection of image data and storage of the collected data in the storage medium;
imaging a region of interest with a digital camera assembly that inputs the resulting image data to the controller; and
sensing acceleration and rotation rates of the camera assembly with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and providing a signal indicative thereof to the controller, the signal from the IMU being used by the controller to trigger image collection by the camera assembly when the signal indicates that the camera assembly is in a predetermined orientation for collecting said image data. - View Dependent Claims (49, 50)
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Specification