Panoramic Video for Efficient Ground Surveillance from Small Unmanned Air Vehicles

As unmanned air vehicle (UAV) utilization increases in Wilderness Search and Rescue (WiSAR) efforts, onboard sensors yielding more information will be desired. UAVs can assist WiSAR efforts by accelerating the ground search process through returning quality aerial footage of the terrain. Additionally, tracking the progress of a search by populating a digital map with video resolution data increases confidence that a comprehensive search of the region has been made. This thesis presents methods for acquiring video from multiple video sensors and fusing them into a single rendered video stream as a Virtual Gimbal. The panoramic video stream is the first of its kind to be constructed from video transmissions from a small UAV, and the first known video panorama to be used to quickly survey a region within a WiSAR context. The Virtual Gimbal comprises two video transmissions from a three camera array mounted in a downward-looking configuration on a UAV. This video stream has been shown to decrease the amount of time required to thoroughly survey a region by more than 40 percent.

Name thesis:degree_name

MS

Grantor dc:publisher

Brigham Young University - Provo

Author dc:creator

• Jackson, Joseph Aaron

• video
• vision
• panoramic video
• gimbal
• UAV
• search
• wilderness
• resolution
• mapping
• surveillance
• monitor
• aerial
• image
• image processing
• rescue
• Mechanical Engineering

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/870

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarsarchive.byu.edu:etd-1869