Patent ID: 11893740
Assignee: AURORA FLIGHT SCIENCES CORPORATION, A SUBSIDIARY OF THE BOEING COMPANY
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 10:
11. A computing system comprising:
one or more processors; and
a memory system comprising one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, cause the computing system to perform operations, the operations comprising:
identifying a first image that is captured at a first time, wherein the first image is captured by a camera on an aircraft in flight;
identifying a second image that is captured at a second time, wherein the second image is captured by the camera on the aircraft in flight;
segmenting the first image into a plurality of first image portions, wherein a variation of the aircraft, the camera, or both between the first image and the second image causes image distortion when comparing the first image as a whole and the second image as a whole, wherein the variation is in a distance between the aircraft and a ground, an attitude of the aircraft, a rotation of the aircraft, an angle of the camera, or a combination thereof, and wherein the image distortion causes an object in the first and second images to appear to move when the objects are actually stationary;
segmenting the second image into a plurality of second image portions;
determining a phase correlation between one of the plurality of first image portions and a corresponding one of the plurality of second image portions, wherein the phase correlation is due to the image distortion;
comparing the one of the plurality of first image portions and the corresponding one of the plurality of second image portions based at least partially upon the phase correlation;
determining an affine translation between the one of the plurality of first image portions and the corresponding one of the plurality of second image portions based at least partially upon the comparison;
transforming the one of the plurality of first image portions into a transformed first image portion based at least partially upon the affine translation;
identifying a pixel in the transformed first image portion that differs from a corresponding pixel in the corresponding one of the plurality of second image portions by more than a predetermined amount;
determining that the pixel in the transformed first image and the corresponding pixel in the corresponding one of the plurality of second image portions represent a moving object; and
causing the aircraft to navigate based at least partially upon the moving object.