Development of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) designed to locate the position of a projectile’s termination using image processing algorithms

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been widely used to acquire high quality terrain images of the areas of interest, particularly when it potentially involves risk of human life or when the area is inaccessible. The images once obtained are processed through basic image processing algorithms to locate mobile targets, analyze terrain and other forms of surveillance. Thus the result of which we obtain and establish a virtual model of the region of operation. In any such applications of image processing the geo-referenced images are stitched together to represent the geospatial relationships for the feature objects are sufficient. A fast or near real-time processing approach for UAV images using GPS data has been investigated for years. In this thesis various image processing techniques have been studied to implement the most efficient algorithm required to track and locate the termination of a projectile. This can be done by using algorithms like Fast Mosaic UAV images, Particle Filter algorithms, and Coordinate transformation of image - GPS matrices etc. can be used to implement image stitching. A simple method for estimating the position, heading and altitude of an inbound projectile in the region of operation can be done. The image –to-GPS mapping thus generated can be used to localize other objects on the ground.