Estimating Speed and Direction of Small Dynamic Targets through Optical Satellite Imaging

Abstract

Moving Target Indicators (MTI) are systems used to distinguish movement from stationary scenes and sometimes to derive the spatial attributes of these objects. These systems are currently used in many sectors such as traffic studies, border surveillance, and military applications. The proposed MTI reveals vehicles and their velocities using commercial imagery from a passive optical satellite-mounted sensor. With simple process of image differencing, the MTI can automatically recognize conveyances in motion (speed and direction) represented by polygons formed by a group of pixels from successive images. Micro-change detection with an existing commercial satellite requires special considerations of differences in spatial and spectral resolution between images. Complications involving the movement detection system such as vehicle overlap, vehicle clusters, and zones of low confidence are refined by adding error-reducing modules. This process is tested on a variety of vehicles, their concentrations, and environments, confirming the feasibility of utilizing an MTI with commercial optical satellite imagery for movement recognition and velocity estimation.

A Novel Ship-Tracking Method for GF-4 Satellite Sequential Images

“…Then there is a slight time lag between the acquisitions of the PAN and MS images, which can be used to extract the moving information of targets. The single-pass imagery has been successfully used to extract motion information of vehicles and planes [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ], while the time lag is too small to detect low speed moving vessels. Motion parameters can also be estimated using along-track sequential or stereo satellite images, which are taken by agile remote sensing satellites such as WorldView-2 with multi-angular look capability [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ].…”

Multispectral Misregistration of Sentinel-2A Images: Analysis and Implications for Potential Applications

“…Hence, the multi-spectral displacement can be used as a feature to detect clouds or moving objects. This idea has been exploited for geostationary satellites, where spectral bands are acquired at slightly different times [3], [4], [5], and very high and moderate spatial resolution satellites, where a parallax angle between pan-chromatic and multi-spectral bands exist [6], [7], [8], [9], [10].…”

A Semi-Automated Single Day Image Differencing Technique to Identify Animals in Aerial Imagery

“…The temporal scales used to detect change have ranged from seasonal to decadal [22]–[25] and frequently focused on the detection or differentiation of change versus no-change. Change detection at finer temporal scales, such as within a month, a week, or a day are generally derived by subtracting spatially registered frames derived from airborne digital camera or video systems [26].…”

“…Temporal change detection from remotely sensed imagery via image subtraction has been used to quantify changes in land cover, habitat types, forests species composition, landscape health (i.e., flooding, landslides, drought), and when mapping urban growth [20] , [21] . The temporal scales used to detect change have ranged from seasonal to decadal [22] – [25] and frequently focused on the detection or differentiation of change versus no-change. Change detection at finer temporal scales, such as within a month, a week, or a day are generally derived by subtracting spatially registered frames derived from airborne digital camera or video systems [26] .…”