Automatic target recognition apparatus and method
First Claim
1. An automatic target recognition apparatus for recognizing an object within a digitized image, comprising:
- a video camera and digitizer for producing a digitized image;
and a computer for processing the digitized image, wherein;
the image is processed in a plurality of parallel analysis chains, each of said analysis chains being a distinct means for analyzing the image such that the object may be identified by one or more of said parallel analysis chains.
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Abstract
An automatic target recognition apparatus (10) is provided, having a video camera/digitizer (12) for producing a digitized image signal (20) representing an image containing therein objects which objects are to be recognized if they meet predefined criteria. The digitized image signal (20) is processed within a video analysis subroutine (22) residing in a computer (14) in a plurality of parallel analysis chains such that the objects are presumed to be lighter in shading than the background in the image in three of the chains and further such that the objects are presumed to be darker than the background in the other three chains. In two of the chains the objects are defined by surface texture analysis using texture filter operations. In another two of the chains the objects are defined by background subtraction operations. In yet another two of the chains the objects are defined by edge enhancement processes. In each of the analysis chains a calculation operation independently determines an error factor relating to the probability that the objects are of the type which should be recognized, and a probability calculation operation combines the results of the analysis chains.
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Citations
19 Claims
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1. An automatic target recognition apparatus for recognizing an object within a digitized image, comprising:
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a video camera and digitizer for producing a digitized image; and a computer for processing the digitized image, wherein; the image is processed in a plurality of parallel analysis chains, each of said analysis chains being a distinct means for analyzing the image such that the object may be identified by one or more of said parallel analysis chains. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A method for using a computer to recognize objects within a digitized video image, the method comprising:
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processing the digitized video image in a plurality of parallel processing chains, wherein; one or more of the processing chains for analyzing the content of the video image includes a series of processing steps for identifying a relatively light target against a relatively dark background, and; one or more of the processing chains includes a numerical inversion operation for inverting the shading within the image such that a relatively dark image on a relatively light background becomes equivalent to a relatively light image on a relatively dark background. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. In a computerized mine detection apparatus having a plurality of sensors for sensing objects and a computer for receiving and processing input from the sensors to determine if any if the objects is a mine, an improvement comprising;
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a video camera for producing a digitized video image, and; a plurality of processing series, each of said processing series independently processing the video image such that each of said processing series can independently determine if a mine is present in the image. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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Specification