Image Processing for Defense
Image processing and enhancement software is used to extract useful information from imagery for a wide variety of military and defense applications, including ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance), mapping, navigation, and missile and weapons guidance.
The source imagery may be gathered from satellite imagery, EO/IR (electro-optical/infrared) payloads and cameras attached to manned and unmanned aircraft, or sensors attached to other vehicles or worn by infantry personnel. Images may also be processed in order to compress them, allowing them to be sent over bandwidth-limited datalinks.
Military Image Analysis
Image analysis tools may be used to pick out potential targets and objects of interest, or to identify and quantify friendly or hostile forces. Feature extraction and object classification may be performed using advanced AI (artificial intelligence) and computer vision algorithms.
Image enhancement software can be used to improve the visibility of images that may have been affected by gimbal movement, aircraft and vehicle vibration, and environmental effects such as clouds and weather. Filtering can be used to sharpen or smoothen images, and image processing can also be used to brighten shadows or correct for distortion such as fisheye effects.
AI Image Processing
Image processing software may be performed by computers following retrieval of the data post-mission, or by embedded systems on board an aircraft or vehicle. The systems may use CPUs, GPUs or FPGAs to process the imagery, and may be able to run compute-intensive AI and deep learning algorithms. Imagery can also be sent to cloud servers to be processed, thus doing away with the need for SWaP (size, weight and power)-intensive systems at point of capture. This option has become increasingly viable with the advent of high-bandwidth LTE and SATCOM datalinks.
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