IMAGING SYSTEM FOR UAV

• US 20120200703A1
• Filed: 10/21/2010
• Published: 08/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Bluebird Aero Systems, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Bluebird Aero Systems, Ltd.
• Inventors: Shechter, Motti, Nadir, Ronen, Barsky, Ronen
• Application Number:
  US13/502,379
• Publication Number:
  US 20120200703A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/144
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 27/644 compensating for large deviations, e.g. maintaining a fixed line of sight while a vehicle on which the system is mounted changes course
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/60 Control of cameras or camera modules
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/698 for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/443 by reading pixels from selected 2D regions of the array, e.g. for windowing or digital zooming

Abstract

There is provided herein a system for providing a stabilized video image with continuously scrollable and automatically controllable Line-Of-Site (LOS) and adjustable Field-Of-View (FOV) for use in an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), with no moving parts. The system comprising a plurality of fixed oriented sensors disposed in one or more of orientations, a computing unit comprising processor adapted to define a position of a window of interest (WOI) within one or more field-of-views of said plurality of sensors, read pixels data from said WOI, compensate, in real time, for changes in a target position relative to the UAV and for the UAV attitude by continuously scrolling the position of said WOI and provide a continuous high frame rate video image based on the pixels data from said WOI. The system may also provide retrievable high resolution images of the scene, to be stored in internal memory for later retrieve or transmitted to a Ground Control Station in parallel to the real-time video.

Claims

1. A system for providing a continuously scrollable stabilized video image with automatically controllable Line-Of-Site (LOS) and adjustable Field-Of-View (FOV) for use in an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), the system comprising:

a plurality of sensors disposed in one or more of orientations;

a computing unit comprising processor adapted to;

define a position and size of a window of interest (WOI) within one or more field-of-views of said plurality of sensors in order to view a Target Of Interest (TOI);

read pixels data from said WOI;

compensate, in real time, for changes in said TOI'"'"'s position relative to the UAV and for the UAV attitude by, continuously scrolling the position of said WOI; and

provide a continuous high frame rate video image based on the pixels data from said WOI.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said computing unit further comprises a Field-Programmable Gate (FPGA) and an interface component adapted to manage and control the sensors and wherein said processor is an image processing digital signal processor (DSP).

3. The system of claim 1, further adapted to provide retrievable high-resolution still images, wherein said processor is further adapted to retrievably store high resolution still images with related information in an internal memory device.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein said plurality of sensors further comprise one or more lenses adapted to control the field-of-view and resolution of said video image and/or still images.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said plurality of sensors are disposed in a plurality of orientations.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein providing said video image is performed after the step of compensating, in real time, for changes in said target position relative to the UAV and for the UAV attitude.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein said position of said window of interest (WOI) is defined based on a command received from a Ground Control Station (GCS).

8. The system of claim 1, wherein said processor is further adapted to continuously (smoothly) resize the WOI upon Ground Control Station (GCS) command or upon automatic selection defined by a mode of operation.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein said continuous video image is a wide field-of-view video image.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein said image comprises of information taken from one sensor or more.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a transmitter adapted to transmit said continuous video image to a Ground Control Station (GCS), in high frame rate and in multiple resolutions.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein said transmission comprises PAL 576×

720 and HD 1080×

1920.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein said processor is further adapted to read pixels data from essentially all sensors and to store said data.

14. The system of claim 1, further comprising a memory adapted to store one or more images along with related metadata.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein said processor is further adapted, upon receiving a command from a user, to pull from storage one or more images and to trigger a transmitter to transmit to a Ground Control Station (GCS) said one or more images.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein said processor is further adapted to stabilize said video image by using one or more image processing algorithms.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein said one or more image processing algorithms comprise maintaining pixels of interest in essentially the same position relative to a screen.

18-24. -24. (canceled)

25. A method for providing a continuously scrollable stabilized video image with automatically controllable Line-Of-Site (LOS) and adjustable Field-Of-View (FOV) for use in an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), the method comprising:

defining a position and size of a window of interest (WOI) within one or more of a plurality of sensors disposed in one or more orientations, in order to view a Target Of Interest (TOI);

reading pixels data from said WOI;

compensating, in real time, for changes in said TOI'"'"'s position relative to the UAV and for the UAV attitude by continuously scrolling the position of said WOI; and

providing a continuous video image based on the pixels data from said WOI.

26. The method of claim 25, further comprising providing retrievable high-resolution still images and retrievably storing said high resolution still images with related information in an internal memory device.

27-46. -46. (canceled)

47. An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) comprising a system for providing a continuously scrollable stabilized video image with automatically controllable Line-Of-Site (LOS) and adjustable Field-Of-View (FOV) for use in an, the system comprising:

a plurality of sensors disposed in one or more of orientations;

a computing unit comprising a processor adapted to;

define a position and size of a window of interest (WOI) within one or more field-of-views of said plurality of sensors, in order to view a Target Of Interest (TOI);

read pixels data from said WOI;

compensate, in real time, for changes in said TOI'"'"'s position relative to the UAV and for the UAV attitude by, continuously scrolling the position of said WOI; and

provide a continuous high frame rate video image based on the pixels data from said WOI.

48. The UAV of claim 47, wherein said system is further adapted to provide retrievable high-resolution still images, wherein said processor is further adapted to retrievabley store high resolution still images with related information in an internal memory device.

49. The UAV of claim 47, wherein said plurality of sensors further comprise one or more lenses adapted to control the resolution of said video image and/or still images.