EO Sensor Planning for UAV Engineering Reconnaissance Based on NIIRS and GIQE

Jingbo Bai,Liang Chen,Jianyong Liu,Yangyang Sun,Yufang Feng

doi:10.1155/2018/6837014

Abstract

When unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) support the Corps of Engineers in reconnaissance operations, in order to gather visible image information that should meet the mission’s need, we grouped the engineering reconnaissance information interpretation tasks into 10 levels by using the National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scale (NIIRS). The quantitative relationship between the engineering targets, sensor performance, and flight altitude was established through the general image quality equation (GIQE) and the geometrical property of the ground sampled distance (GSD). Through some simulations, the influence of variable factors of the EO sensor imaging quality was analyzed, and the imaging height of the sensor for an engineering reconnaissance scenario was calculated. The results showed that this study could solve the problem of poor image quality caused by the flight altitude not meeting the mission requirements.

Highlights

The main task of engineering reconnaissance is to detect or identify the terrain, geology, hydrology, traffic conditions, the enemy’s engineering facilities, the resources available locally on the battlefield, etc
When engineering corps reconnaissance operations are supported by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the mission planners of engineering corps may have limited knowledge about the use of UAV sensors, and because of the temporary assignment of engineering reconnaissance, the UAV operators of other units may not be familiar with the engineering targets
Aiming at the problem of how to obtain visible-light image intelligence in engineering reconnaissance operations supported by UAVs, the National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scale (NIIRS) and general image quality equation (GIQE) were studied in this paper

Summary

Introduction

The main task of engineering reconnaissance is to detect or identify the terrain, geology, hydrology, traffic conditions, the enemy’s engineering facilities, the resources available locally on the battlefield, etc. There have been many research studies on the planning of the flight altitude of UAVs [1,2,3,4], but the main task of these studies was to avoid antiaircraft fire or missiles, radar detection, obstacles, and other threats by adjusting flight altitude. This approach does not focus on the relationship between the sensor imaging height and quality.

NIIRS and GIQE

Sensor Planning Method

Simulation and Results Discussion

Conclusions