Detection of Thin Lines using Low-Quality Video from Low-Altitude Aircraft in Urban Settings

A novel thin line detection algorithm for use in low-altitude aerial vehicles is presented. This algorithm is able to detect thin obstacles such as cables, power lines, and wires. The system is intended to be used during urban search and rescue operations, capable of dealing with low-quality images, robust to image clutter, bad weather, and sensor artifacts. The detection process uses motion estimation at the pixel level, combined with edge detection, followed by a windowed Hough transform. The evidence of lines is tracked over time in the resulting parameter spaces using a dynamic line movement model. The algorithm's receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) is shown, based on a multi-site dataset with 86 videos with 10160 wires spanning in 5576 frames.

[1]  Sean Dougherty,et al.  Edge Detector Evaluation Using Empirical ROC Curves , 2001, Comput. Vis. Image Underst..

[2]  Tarak Gandhi,et al.  Detection of obstacles in the flight path of an aircraft , 2000, Proceedings IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. CVPR 2000 (Cat. No.PR00662).

[3]  Kamal Sarabandi,et al.  Power lines: radar measurements and detection algorithm for polarimetric SAR images , 1994 .

[4]  Tarak Gandhi,et al.  Real-time obstacle detection system for high speed civil transport supersonic aircraft , 2000, Proceedings of the IEEE 2000 National Aerospace and Electronics Conference. NAECON 2000. Engineering Tomorrow (Cat. No.00CH37093).

[5]  S. W. Shaw,et al.  Efficient target tracking using dynamic programming , 1993 .

[6]  Ying Huang,et al.  Obstacle detection algorithms for rotorcraft navigation , 2002, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[7]  Xiao Xiao,et al.  Vision-based road-following using a small autonomous aircraft , 2004, 2004 IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings (IEEE Cat. No.04TH8720).

[8]  Raja Sengupta,et al.  Obstacle Detection for Small Autonomous Aircraft Using Sky Segmentation , 2005, Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[9]  B. Barron,et al.  Low cost wire detection system , 1999, Gateway to the New Millennium. 18th Digital Avionics Systems Conference. Proceedings (Cat. No.99CH37033).

[10]  Liuqing Huang,et al.  Relative depth from motion using normal flow: an active and purposive solution , 1991, Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Visual Motion.

[11]  B. Saether,et al.  Application of the Hough transform for automated interpretation of linear features in imageries , 1994, Proceedings of IGARSS '94 - 1994 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

[12]  Steven D. Blostein,et al.  Detecting small, moving objects in image sequences using sequential hypothesis testing , 1991, IEEE Trans. Signal Process..

[13]  Aníbal Ollero,et al.  Motion compensation and object detection for autonomous helicopter visual navigation in the COMETS system , 2004, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2004. Proceedings. ICRA '04. 2004.

[14]  A. Kurdila,et al.  Vision-based control of micro-air-vehicles: progress and problems in estimation , 2004, 2004 43rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37601).

[15]  R.J. Fontana,et al.  An ultra wideband radar for micro air vehicle applications , 2002, 2002 IEEE Conference on Ultra Wideband Systems and Technologies (IEEE Cat. No.02EX580).

[16]  David Casasent,et al.  Detection filters and algorithm fusion for ATR , 1997, IEEE Trans. Image Process..

[17]  Paul F. M. J. Verschure,et al.  A Biologically Based Flight Control System for a Blimp-based UAV , 2005, Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[18]  Rangachar Kasturi,et al.  Wire Detection Algorithms for Navigation , 2002 .

[19]  S. Mills,et al.  Object tracking through a Hough space , 2003 .

[20]  Savvas Nikiforou,et al.  Comparison of edge detection algorithms using a structure from motion task , 2001, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Part B.

[21]  Carsten Steger,et al.  An Unbiased Detector of Curvilinear Structures , 1998, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell..

[22]  Tarak Gandhi,et al.  Performance characterization of the dynamic programming obstacle detection algorithm , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing.

[23]  R. Neil Braithwaite,et al.  Hierarchical Gabor filters for object detection in infrared images , 1994, 1994 Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.

[24]  John F. Canny,et al.  A Computational Approach to Edge Detection , 1986, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

[25]  Jean-Arcady Meyer,et al.  A contribution to vision-based autonomous helicopter flight in urban environments , 2005, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[26]  Dmitry B. Goldgof,et al.  Comparison of Edge Detector Performance through Use in an Object Recognition Task , 2001, Comput. Vis. Image Underst..

[27]  Dmitry B. Goldgof,et al.  Vision-based on-board collision avoidance system for aircraft navigation , 2006, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[28]  Cláudio Rosito Jung,et al.  Rectangle detection based on a windowed Hough transform , 2004, Proceedings. 17th Brazilian Symposium on Computer Graphics and Image Processing.

[29]  S. M. Steve.  SUSAN - a new approach to low level image processing , 1997 .

[30]  Yair Barniv,et al.  Dynamic Programming Solution for Detecting Dim Moving Targets , 1985, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[31]  Gaurav S. Sukhatme,et al.  Towards vision-based safe landing for an autonomous helicopter , 2002, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[32]  Mark Savan,et al.  Retroreflectance of Wires and Cables at 10.6 Micrometers. , 1988 .

[33]  K. Yamada,et al.  Analysis of the infrared images to detect power lines , 1997, TENCON '97 Brisbane - Australia. Proceedings of IEEE TENCON '97. IEEE Region 10 Annual Conference. Speech and Image Technologies for Computing and Telecommunications (Cat. No.97CH36162).

[34]  Marshall Weathersby,et al.  Detection Performance in Clutter with Variable Resolution , 1983, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.