Image velocity measurement based on motion blurring effect

The producing mechanism of the motion blurring effect in the aerial photography process was analyzed. The kinetic model was built based on the relative kinematics relation among the aerial camera, target subject and the image in the aerial photography system. The relationship between the width of motion belt and the exposing time of camera was also studied. An estimating algorithm which was based on the edge strengthen algorithm and the self-correlation analyzing technology was designed for measuring the width of the blurring belt in the motion blurred image. A new image velocity measurement method based on motion blurring effect was presented. A practical measuring algorithm was given. The measuring precision of the method, which was influenced by the pixel size, blurring belt width, camera attitude and so on, was also discussed. Compared with the other speed measuring technology such as the velocity measurement method based on the Doppler effect or the terrain -matching method, the method could be easily used on a plane or UAV with no additional equipment and needn't any terrain data which is hard to prepare. The simulation results show that the new method has a good performance even it exists some noise and small attitude errors. It provides a good performance to the carrier plane which is flying at a uniform speed and offers a new way to measure the flying velocity of the aircraft with low cost.