Abstract:

Aiming at the movement of the targets in unknown altitude terrain, a monocular camera based target geolocation method for  micro air vehicles (MAV) is presented. Firstly, the optical flow histgram algorithm extracts background features in the  target’s local region. Secondly, these features are clustered into two possible classes including aided plane features  and non-aided plane features by the expectation maximization algorithm, in which the homography relationship between MAV ’s flight status measured by onboard micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS)/ global positioning system (GPS) sensors  and planar is used. Meanwile, the normal vector of aided plane and the distance between the camera and the plane are  estimated. Then the aided plane equation can be establised. Finally, the moving taregt can be geolocated by calculating  the intersection of target’s sight line and aided plane in inertial frame. Experimental results show that this  method can instantaneously geolocate the moving target by operator’s single click and the error can reach less than 15 m  for an MAV flying at 100 m above the ground.