Automatic Registration of Forward-Looking Imagery

Atlantic Aerospace Electronics Corporation proposes to develop an automatic image registration sufficiently accurate to deal with images exhibiting differences in scale and perspective. The algorithm consists of a global step aimed at registration of features on the ground, followed by a local step to accommodate objects with vertical extent. The global component will be based on Harris Information System's MET registration software which uses sensor geometry models and terrain elevation information. The local component is a new algorithm and uses Atlantic's innovative morphology-based technology to identify regions of object shift due to parallax. The main goal of the proposed Phase I effort will be to develop an automated algorithm for registering two frames of forward-looking optical or IR imagery. A comparison of the registration performance of this algorithm to a more classical correlation-only approach will be conducted. As part of this effort, computational requirements for the proposed algorithm will be estimated. An optional task will allow further testing with more imagery and will begin the software development for a near real-time registration system leading to the full scale development in Phase II.