Methods and arrangements to enhance gridlocking

• US 20030169945A1
• Filed: 03/08/2002
• Published: 09/11/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Anzus, Inc. (Raytheon Technologies Corporation d/b/a RTX)
• Original Assignee: Anzus, Inc. (Raytheon Technologies Corporation d/b/a RTX)
• Inventors: Stanek, Clay J.
• Granted Patent: US 6,922,493 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/293
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/42 Simultaneous measurement of distance and other co-ordinates indirect measurement G01S13/46
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 3/7865 using correlation of the live video image with a stored image

Abstract

The present invention is in the area of gridlocking or sensor registration. Embodiments encompass systems of process and/or equipment to format tracks from more than one sensor to be compared or correlated by statistical and/or optical correlation techniques to provide coordinate transformations between one or more of the sensors based upon the objects or a subset of the objects tracked by each sensor. Embodiments may take into account determinations or calculations regarding tracks describing the same object by different sensors and may take into account errors in those determinations by comparing pairs of tracks associated with more than one object at the same or substantially the same time. Further, many embodiments comprise software that can execute on a laptop, desktop, or similar computer.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a first set of tracks from a first sensor and a second set of tracks from a second sensor, wherein a first track of the first set of tracks and a second track of the second set of tracks comprise data sensed for an object within a sensor overlap substantially simultaneously;

generating a first image having a first feature to describe objects concurrently within the sensor overlap based upon the first set of tracks; and

generating a second image having a second feature to describe objects concurrently within the sensor overlap based upon the second set of tracks, wherein the second feature is substantially similar to the first feature to facilitate a determination of a relationship between the first sensor and the second sensor; and

outputting the first image and the second image to an image correlation system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said receiving a first set of tracks comprises receiving a position for a track based upon a position of the first sensor.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said generating a first image comprises:

determining an association between tracks of the first set of tracks and the second set of tracks;

selecting tracks of the first set of tracks based upon the association; and

generating the first image with the selected tracks of the first set of tracks.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein determining an association comprises receiving the first track and the second track as a pair of tracks.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein determining an association comprises receiving a cost to pair the first track with the second track.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein selecting tracks comprises comparing the cost to associate the first track with the second track against another cost to associate the first track with a different track of the second set of tracks.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein determining an association comprises determining an area comprising an overlap of a range of the first sensor with a range of the second sensor.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein said generating the first image comprises generating the first image with the first track, wherein a cost of the association is at least as low as a reference cost.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising adjusting the reference cost according to a correlation of images based upon prior tracks from the first sensor and the second sensor.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said generating a first image comprises generating the first feature at the first position to describe the position of the object with respect to the first sensor.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein generating the first feature at the first position comprises generating a pixel to describe the position of the object with respect to another object sensed by the first sensor.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said generating a first image comprises generating a polygon by connecting the positions indicated by tracks of the first set of tracks in an order from a small angle to a large angle with respect to an origin of the first image.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said generating a second image based upon a second set of tracks comprises generating the second image to facilitate a determination of a coordinate transformation to align the first feature with the second feature.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said generating a second image comprises generating the second image rotated by an angle.

15. An apparatus, comprising:

a track input to receive a first set of tracks from a first sensor having a first track and a second set of tracks from a second sensor having a second track, wherein the first track is associated with an object and the second track is associated with the object;

an image generator coupled with said track input to generate a first image having a first feature based upon the first track and to generate a second image having a second feature, similar to the first feature, based upon the second track to facilitate a determination of a relationship between the first sensor and the second sensor; and

an image output coupled with said image generator to output the first image and the second image.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, further comprising an image rotator coupled with said image generator to rotate the second image by an angle.

17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein said track input comprises a coordinate converter to convert coordinates of tracks to a uniform coordinate system.

18. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein said image generator comprises a sensor determiner to associate a track with a sensor.

19. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein said image generator comprises an association determiner to determine an association between the first track and the second track and to select tracks of the first set of tracks to generate the first image.

20. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein said image output comprises an image buffer coupled with said image generator to store the first image.

21. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein said image output comprises an image selector to select images to compare.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the image selector comprises a round-robin determiner to select a reference image.

23. An system, comprising:

a comparator to determine a coordinate transformation for a first sensor and a second sensor;

an association system coupled with said comparator to select a subset of tracks from the first sensor to generate a first image;

a track input coupled with said association system to receive a first set of tracks from the first sensor having a first track and a second set of tracks from the second sensor having a second track, wherein the first track is associated with an object and the second track is associated with the object;

an image generator coupled with said track input to generate a first image having a first feature based upon the first track and to generate a second image having a second feature, similar to the first feature, based upon the second track to facilitate a determination of a relationship between the first sensor and the second sensor; and

an image output coupled with said image generator to output the first image and the second image.

24. The system of claim 23, further comprising an image rotator coupled with said image generator to rotate the second image by an angle.

25. The system of claim 23, wherein said association system comprises a cost buffer to store a cost to associate tracks of the first set of track with the second set of tracks.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein said image output comprises an image selector to select images to compare.

27. A machine-readable medium containing instructions, which when executed by a machine, cause said machine to perform operations, comprising:

receiving a first set of tracks from a first sensor and a second set of tracks from a second sensor, wherein a first track of the first set of tracks and a second track of the second set of tracks comprise data sensed for an object within a sensor overlap substantially simultaneously;

generating a first image having a first feature to describe objects concurrently within the sensor overlap based upon the first set of tracks;

generating a second image having a second feature to describe objects concurrently within the sensor overlap based upon the second set of tracks, wherein the second feature is substantially similar to the first feature to facilitate a determination of a relationship between the first sensor and the second sensor; and

outputting the first image and the second image to an image correlation system.

28. The machine-readable medium of claim 27, wherein said generating a first image comprises generating the first image with the tracks of the first set of tracks wherein the tracks are based upon an association.

29. The machine-readable medium of claim 27, wherein said generating a first image comprises:

determining an association between tracks of the first set of tracks and the second set of tracks;

selecting tracks of the first set of tracks based upon the association; and

generating the first image with the selected tracks of the first set of tracks.

30. The machine-readable medium of claim 27, wherein said generating a second image based upon a second set of tracks comprises generating the second image to determine a coordinate transformation to align the first feature with the second feature.