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System and method for detecting, tracking and estimating the speed of vehicles from a mobile platform

  • US 9,070,289 B2
  • Filed: 05/10/2013
  • Issued: 06/30/2015
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2013
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method for measuring ground vehicle speed comprising:

  • positioning an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in proximity to a roadway, the UAV flying under control and navigation of a UAV control unit, and further carrying camera and monitoring equipment, the camera and monitoring equipment including an onboard computing system, and a camera with a wide angle lens and a camera with a telephoto lens, the cameras mounted on a pan/tilt device;

    using a computer vision algorithm to detect vehicles moving on a roadway despite motion created by movement of the UAV, wherein the computer vision algorithm is operated by the on-board computing system;

    moving the cameras mounted on the pan/tilt device under the direction of the computer vision algorithm to maintain a target vehicle of the detected moving vehicles in view; and

    measuring a speed of the target vehicle,wherein the UAV control unit uses Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates and camera geometry, altitude, and location of the target vehicle in the image to measure the target vehicle speed.

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