Evolutionary algorithms in airborne surveillance systems: image enhancement via optimal sightline control

Abstract

Airborne electro-optic systems require precise control of the camera line-of-sight vector to prevent unwanted and possibly mission-critical degradation of image quality. This is particularly true for long-range surveillance missions or operation in low signal-to-noise ratio environments. Recent work has shown that pixel smear during camera integration (jitter) can be reduced if adaptive friction compensation ‘shapes’ the jitter frequency content in addition to reducing the energy content. This article expands upon that work by automating the tuning process for the sightline control parameters using a genetic algorithm (GA) with a novel fitness function – the average modulation transfer function. The efficacy of this cost function is illustrated first through tuning of the traditional rate loop proportional + integral controller gains and second via tuning of a bespoke adaptive friction compensator. It is shown in both cases that controllers tuned using the GA with this fitness function are significantly better than the current root-mean-square figure of merit typically employed in stabilization loop design.

Optimisation of Trajectories for Wireless Power Transmission to a Quadrotor Aerial Robot

“…The second agent is an actuated energy transmission system (ETS), which consists of a laser emitter and electro-optical (EO) camera mounted on a two-axis gimbal, allowing accurate target tracking and sightline control. The gimbal is in the standard elevation-over-azimuth configuration affording the ETS's laser emitter and camera rotational freedom in elevation and heading [3,4].…”

“…This allows any position in Q to be rotated to W by r W = R W Q r Q . As R ∈ SO (3), the reverse transformation may be defined R Q W = (R W Q ) T . The geometric centre of the quadrotor's photovoltaic sensor has fixed position r Q S/Q ∈ R 3 in Q, as shown orientation of the sensor surface is defined by the surface normaln Q S ∈ R 3 .…”

Anti-Disturbance Neural-Sliding Mode Control for Inertially Stabilized Platform With Actuator Saturation

“…Due to increasing expectations for unmanned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems, the inertially stabilized platform (ISP) attracted significant interest in the aircraft vehicle industry [1], [2]. For example, in the field of civil aerial remote sensing system, the high-precision ISP is indispensable for the stabilization of the axis of optical sensors in space to return the high quality geographic images in real time [3].…”