Andrew J. Moore

Testing Enabling Technologies for Safe UAS Urban Operations

A set of more than 100 flight operations were conducted at NASA Langley Research Center using small UAS (sUAS) to demonstrate, test, and evaluate a set of technologies and an overarching air-ground system concept aimed at enabling safety. The research vehicle was tracked continuously during nominal traversal of planned flight paths while autonomously operating over moderately populated land. For selected flights, off-nominal risks were introduced, including vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) encounters. Three contingency maneuvers were demonstrated that provide safe responses. These maneuvers made use of an integrated air/ground platform and two on-board autonomous capabilities. Flight data was monitored and recorded with multiple ground systems and was forwarded in real time to a UAS traffic management (UTM) server for airspace coordination and supervision.

Machine Vision Identification of Airport Runways with Visible and Infrared Videos

A widely used machine vision pipeline based on the Speeded-Up Robust Features feature detector was applied to the problem of identifying a runway from a universe of known runways, which was constructed using video records of 19 straight-in glidepath approaches to nine runways. The recordings studied included visible, short-wave infrared, and long-wave infrared videos in clear conditions, rain, and fog. Both daytime and nighttime runway approaches were used. High detection specificity (identification of the runway approached and rejection of the other runways in the universe) was observed in all conditions (greater than 90% Bayesian posterior probability). In the visible band, repeatability (identification of a given runway across multiple videos of it) was observed only if illumination (day versus night) was the same and approach visibility was good. Some repeatability was found across visible and shortwave sensor bands. Camera-based geolocation during aircraft landing was compared to the standard Charted...

Machine vision for airport runway identification

For rigid objects and fixed scenes, current machine vision technology is capable of identifying imagery rapidly and with specificity over a modest range of camera viewpoints and scene illumination. We applied that capability to the problem of runway identification using video of sixteen runway approaches at nine locations, subject to two simplifying assumptions. First, by using approach video from just one of the several possible seasonal variations (no snow cover and full foliage), we artificially removed one source of scene variation in this study. Secondly, by not using approach video at dawn and dusk, we limited the study to two illumination variants (day and night). We did allow scene variation due to atmospheric turbidity by using approach video from rainy and foggy days in some daytime approaches. With suitable ensemble statistics to account for temporal continuity in video, we observed high location specificity (<90% Bayesian posterior probability). We also tested repeatability, i.e., identification of a given runway across multiple videos, and observed robust repeatability only if illumination (day vs. night) was the same and approach visibility was good. Both specificity and repeatability degraded in poor weather conditions. The results of this simplified study show that geolocation via real-time comparison of cockpit image sensor video to a database of runway approach imagery is feasible, as long as the database contains imagery from about the same time of day (complete daylight and nighttime, excluding dawn and dusk) and the weather is clear at the time of the flight.

Anomalous Cases of Astronaut Helmet Detection

An astronaut’s helmet is an invariant, rigid image element that is well suited for identification and tracking using current machine vision technology. Future space exploration will benefit from the development of astronaut detection software for search and rescue missions based on EVA helmet identification. However, helmets are solid white, except for metal brackets to attach accessories such as supplementary lights. We compared the performance of a widely used machine vision pipeline on a standard-issue NASA helmet with and without affixed experimental feature-rich patterns. Performance on the patterned helmet was far more robust. We found that four different feature-rich patterns are sufficient to identify a helmet and determine orientation as it is rotated about the yaw, pitch, and roll axes. During helmet rotation the field of view changes to frames containing parts of two or more feature-rich patterns. We took reference images in these locations to fill in detection gaps. These multiple feature-rich patterns references added substantial benefit to detection, however, they generated the majority of the anomalous cases. In these few instances, our algorithm keys in on one feature-rich pattern of the multiple feature-rich pattern reference and makes an incorrect prediction of the location of the other feature-rich patterns. We describe and make recommendations on ways to mitigate anomalous cases in which detection of one or more feature-rich patterns fails. While the number of cases is only a small percentage of the tested helmet orientations, they illustrate important design considerations for future spacesuits. In addition to our four successful feature-rich patterns, we present unsuccessful patterns and discuss the cause of their poor performance from a machine vision perspective. Future helmets designed with these considerations will enable automated astronaut detection and thereby enhance mission operations and extraterrestrial search and rescue.