AFRL Demonstrates Unmanned Air Vehicle Target Localization Capability

  • Published
  • By Munitions Directorate
  • AFRL/MN
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The Air Force Research Laboratory, in partnership with the Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center (Redstone Arsenal, Alabama), designed and tested a system providing precise ground target coordinates via commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) camera and mapping software. The application utilizes a camera system coordinate frame with basic rotation and geometry matrices to calculate the World Geodetic System 1984 standard earth model position (latitude, longitude, and elevation) of any ground target that appears within an unmanned air vehicle's (UAV) mounted camera field of view. The target localization is relative to the Global Positioning System (GPS) position and attitude values of the UAV, as well as the elevation of the terrain directly below the airborne asset. An operator employs the geolocation application to identify and classify the object of interest before displaying a threat icon on a FalconView-equipped laptop, such as that used by a Tactical Air Control Party. 

In a laboratory-controlled environment, AFRL engineers successfully demonstrated the use of an inexpensive COTS video camera for geolocating ground-based objects from a UAV. The ground station receives telemetry data and video information from the UAV and displays the continuous video stream until the operator detects an object of interest. Once detection occurs, the operator depresses a capture key on the ground station, initiating 1 second of video, or 30 frames. The correlated telemetry and video are centered +0.5 seconds relative to the time of the capture keystroke, which allows the operator to search through the 30 frames to obtain the one containing the best view of the object. 

After selecting the desired object of interest, the operator selects an appropriate object identification and classification from a drop-down menu. The video ground station application computes the GPS position in the video frame in real time and subsequently displays on the FalconView-equipped laptop an icon representing the target track. The results of the target localization algorithms place the object within meters of surveyed "ground truth" position. Engineers are continuing to develop and test the geolocation algorithm and are also working towards providing forward error correction of incoming telemetry, as well as a record and playback feature for the video data.