OFE-EBS — An Optical Flow Equation-Inspired Event-Based Sensor for Low-Earth Orbit Ground Moving Target Indication

Date of Award

8-1-2024

Degree Name

M.S. in Computer Engineering

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Advisor/Chair

Keigo Hirakawa

Abstract

Event-based sensors (EBS) report pixel-asynchronous changes in scene intensity called events. Hence, its sparse event stream is well-suited for many computer vision tasks— particularly object tracking. However, relative motion between the sensor and scene will generate extraneous events caused by the translation of static scene features across the sensor. We present OFE-EBS, an optical flow equation-inspired event-based sensor for low-Earth orbit (LEO) ground moving target indication (GMTI). Owing to the predictable velocity of a satellite platform in LEO, we augment the EBS pixel with additional cross-row subtraction hardware to remove static background features. Pixel adaptivity is modified to ensure dynamic foreground features generate fewer events, further reducing event rate. Finally, using our analytical sensor model, we show that OFE-EBS outperforms conventional EBS in spatial resolution and event rate, considering the effects of pixel nonuniformity.

Keywords

event-based sensor; event camera; ground moving target indication; remote sensing; low-earth orbit

Rights Statement

Copyright © 2024, author.

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