This book considers three basic questions: 1. Why are vision systems fundamental and critical to autonomous flight? 2. What are the vision system tasks required for autonomous flight? 3. How can those tasks be approached? It addresses the role of vision systems for autonomous operations and discusses the critical tasks required of a vision system, including taxi, takeoff, en-route navigation, detect and avoid, and landing, as well as formation flight or approach and docking at a terminal or with other vehicles. These tasks are analyzed to develop field of view, resolution, latency, and other sensing requirements and to understand when one sensor can be used for multiple applications. Airspace classifications, landing visibility categories, decision height criteria, and typical runway dimensions are introduced. The book provides an overview of sensors and phenomenology from visible through infrared, extending into the radar bands and including both passive and active systems. Human visual system performance is discussed as a comparison benchmark. System architectures are discussed, including distributed aperture sensor systems and multiuse sensors. Finally, various algorithms for extracting information from sensor data are examined, such as moving target detection for detect and avoid, shape from motion, multisensor triangulation, model-based pose estimation, wire and cable detection, and geo-location techniques.

Table of Contents:
Preface Glossary 1. Introduction References 2. Autonomous Flight Tasks 2.1 VEAF Tasks 2.1.1 Taxi 2.1.2 Takeoff 2.1.3 En-route navigation 2.1.4 Obstacle avoidance 2.1.5 Landing 2.1.6 Formation flight and A3R 2.2 Required Vision System Capabilities 2.2.1 Surface evaluation 2.2.2 Pose relative to other vehicles and structures 2.2.3 Detect and track resolved objects on the ground 2.2.4 Detect and track unresolved moving objects 2.2.5 Geo-location without GPS 2.2.6 Measure distance traveled 2.2.7 Real-time 3D mapping 2.2.8 Terrain avoidance 2.2.9 Detect runways and taxiways 2.2.10 Detect and interpret colored lights 2.2.11 Detect and read standard airport signage 2.2.12 Other capabilities 2.3 Tasks and Capabilities Summary 2.4 Operating Environment and Common Dimensions References 3. Sensing Requirements 3.1 Taxi 3.2 Takeoff 3.3 En-Route Flight 3.4 Obstacle Avoidance 3.4.1 Airborne detect and avoid 3.4.2 Terrain and obstacle avoidance 3.5 Landing 3.6 Formation Flight 3.7 Sensor Requirements Summary References 4. Sensing Systems 4.1 Human Vision 4.2 Sensor Technologies 4.2.1 Wavebands and phenomenology 4.2.2 Sensors 4.2.3 Lidar 4.2.4 Radar 4.2.5 Other sensors 4.2.6 Sensor summary References 5. Processing and Architectures 5.1 Architecture 5.2 Data Volumes 5.3 Greyscale Management 5.4 Compression 5.5 Latency 5.6 Metadata 5.7 Sensor Formats 5.8 Range Estimation 5.9 Multisensor Systems 5.10 Multiuse Sensors 5.11 Detection and Tracking 5.12 Summary References 6. Algorithms 6.1 Terminology 6.2 Certification and Qualification 6.3 Stereo and Triangulation 6.4 Relative Pose 6.5 3D Mapping and Surface Evaluation 6.6 Airborne Detect and Avoid 6.7 Ground-Based Detection and Tracking 6.8 Terrain and Obstacle Avoidance 6.9 Detect Runways and Taxiways 6.10 Geo-Location/GPS-Denied Navigation 6.11 Docking 6.12 Landing Lights 6.13 Odds and Ends References 7. Relevant Historical Aviation Accidents 7.1 Midair Collision: Failure of DAA 7.2 Ground Ops Collision: DVE 7.3 CFIT: DVE (Night), (Human) Input Error 7.4 Obstacle Collision in Low-Level Flight: DVE 7.5 Landing Collision: DVE 7.6 Crash due to Debris: Vision System (Human) Resolution Too Low 7.7 Vision (and Human Experience) Recovers Mechanical Failure: Miracle on the Hudson 7.8 One More Note on Safety: Cross-Checks for Integrity References Appendix: Triangulation Theory and Coordinate Transformations A.1 Basic Triangulation Equations A.2 Triangulation Accuracy A.3 Maximum Triangulation Range A.4 Computing LOS to Target A.5 Valiation and Coordinate Systems A.6 Rotation Conventions and Matrices A.7 MBPE References 111 Index