An automated stereoscopic coal profiling system-CCLPS

This paper describes the design of a binocular stereo system called CCLPS (Computerized Coal Profiling System) that provides dense, accurate disparity maps of coal as it is being transported in open rail cars. After a quantitative analysis of previously developed cepstral correspondence techniques which highlights the shortcomings of the cepstrum's matching ability in the presence of random noise and severe foreshortening distortion, we present a modified power cepstral approach that is less sensitive to these effects, along with analytical arguments verifying its robustness. The design of the CCLPS system is then discussed in detail and its performance is verified.<<ETX>>