Robust automatic camera pointing for airborne surveillance

Airborne electro-optic surveillance from a moving platform currently requires regular interaction from a trained operator. Even simple tasks such as fixating on a static point on the ground can demand constant adjustment of the camera orientation to compensate for platform motion. In order to free up operator time for other tasks such as navigation and communication with ground assets, an automatic gaze control system is needed. This paper describes such a system, based purely on tracking points within the video image. A number of scene points are automatically selected and their inter-frame motion tracked. The scene motion is then estimated using a model of a planar projective transform. For reliable and accurate camera pointing, the modelling of the scene motion must be robust to common problems such as scene point obscuration, objects moving independently within the scene and image noise. This paper details a COTS based system for automatic camera fixation and describes ways of preventing objects moving in the scene or poor motion estimates from corrupting the scene motion model.