Automated recognition and tracking of aerosol threat plumes with an IR camera pod

Ryan Fauth; Christopher Powell; Thomas Gruber; Dan Clapp

doi:10.1117/12.919179

4 May 2012 Automated recognition and tracking of aerosol threat plumes with an IR camera pod

Ryan Fauth, Christopher Powell, Thomas Gruber, Dan Clapp

Proceedings Volume 8358, Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) Sensing XIII; 835806 (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.919179
Event: SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing, 2012, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Abstract

Protection of fixed sites from chemical, biological, or radiological aerosol plume attacks depends on early warning so that there is time to take mitigating actions. Early warning requires continuous, autonomous, and rapid coverage of large surrounding areas; however, this must be done at an affordable cost. Once a potential threat plume is detected though, a different type of sensor (e.g., a more expensive, slower sensor) may be cued for identification purposes, but the problem is to quickly identify all of the potential threats around the fixed site of interest. To address this problem of low cost, persistent, wide area surveillance, an IR camera pod and multi-image stitching and processing algorithms have been developed for automatic recognition and tracking of aerosol plumes. A rugged, modular, static pod design, which accommodates as many as four micro-bolometer IR cameras for 45deg to 180deg of azimuth coverage, is presented. Various OpenCV¹ based image-processing algorithms, including stitching of multiple adjacent FOVs, recognition of aerosol plume objects, and the tracking of aerosol plumes, are presented using process block diagrams and sample field test results, including chemical and biological simulant plumes. Methods for dealing with the background removal, brightness equalization between images, and focus quality for optimal plume tracking are also discussed.

Citation Download Citation

Ryan Fauth, Christopher Powell, Thomas Gruber, and Dan Clapp "Automated recognition and tracking of aerosol threat plumes with an IR camera pod", Proc. SPIE 8358, Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) Sensing XIII, 835806 (4 May 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.919179

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