A Multi-Camera Conical Imaging System for Robust 3D Motion Estimation, Positioning and Mapping from UAVs

Over the last decade, there has been an increasing interest in developing vision systems and technologies that support the operation of unmanned platforms for positioning, mapping, and navigation. Until very recently, these developments rely on images from standard CCD cameras with a single optical center and limited field of view, making them restrictive for some applications. Panoramic images have been explored extensively in recent years [12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19]. The particular configuration of interest to this investigation yields a conical view, which is most applicable for airborne and underwater platforms. Unlike a single catadioptric camera [2, 15], combination of conventional cameras may be used to generate images at much higher resolution [12]. In this paper, we derive complete mathematic models of projection and image motion equations for a down-look conical camera that may be installed on a mobile platform– e.g, an airborne or submersible system for terrain flyover im...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: AVSS
• Authors: Pezhman Firoozfam, Shahriar Negahdaripour
• Keywords: AVSS 2003, Cameras, Conical View, Image, Signal Processing