Abstract
We apply a multi-spectral (RGB and thermal) camera drone for synthetic aperture imaging to computationally remove occluding vegetation for revealing hidden objects, as required in archeology, search-and-rescue, animal inspection, and border control applications. The radiated heat signal of strongly occluded targets, such as a human bodies hidden in dense shrub, can be made visible by integrating multiple thermal recordings from slightly different perspectives, while being entirely invisible in RGB recordings or unidentifiable in single thermal images. We collect bits of heat radiation through the occluder volume over a wide synthetic aperture range and computationally combine them to a clear image. This requires precise estimation of the drone's position and orientation for each capturing pose, which is supported by applying computer vision algorithms on the high resolution RGB images.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1668 |
Number of pages | 1 |
Journal | Remote Sensing |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 14 |
DOIs |
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Publication status | Published - 13 Jul 2019 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Computational imaging
- Drones
- Light fields
- Occlusion removal
- Synthetic apertures
- Thermal imaging