Multi-Phenomenology Sensing and Sensor Control in Unmanned Intelligence Vehicle (UIV) for ATR and Tracking of Dismounts and Vehicles

Photon-X has developed a novel spatial phase technology that can passively and automatically extract 3-D feature information from a targeted scene in real-time using a single aperture visible or IR camera system. Photon-X will demonstrate the additional benefit derived from this system when combined with legacy sensor systems to create a comprehensive unmanned targeting application. The Photon-X Spatial Phase camera directly measures the Surface Normal Unit Vector (SNUV) of reflected light without moving parts and without sacrificing brightness and color imaging as available with traditional video cameras. SNUV’s are processed directly into surface elements with associated normal vectors yielding 3D surface geometry with extremely low computational complexity and ambiguity. Photon-X has demonstrated the fact that camera-extracted 3D normal vectors are inherently specific to the object of origin, and can be transformed into rotational-, translational- and scale-invariant signatures. Normal vectors are generated by the true object surface geometry, independent of surface characteristics, including paint scheme, brightness, reflectivity, smoothness, color and camouflage. Normal vectors are far less distorted by smoke, clouds, or haze than traditional image intensities. Normal vector extraction is also independent of range to target, allowing object recognition and 3D extraction to achieve equal accuracy for near and far-range objects.