Patent ID: 11941878
Assignee: RAYTHEON COMPANY
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 17:
18. A computer-implemented method of automated road network identification, said computer programmed to implement the steps of:
receiving a single multi-band image including a first set of band images and a second set of band images collected with a time lag relative to the first set;
exploiting the time lag between the first and second sets to detect moving vehicles in the single multi-band image;
using the detected moving vehicles to extract pixel values from the single multi-band image at pixels adjacent to locations of detected moving vehicles to characterize at least one image-specific spectral roadway signature; and
searching the single multi-band image to match the at least one image-specific spectral roadway signature to pixel values for each of the bands for groupings including at least one pixel to grow a road network map, by, for each image-specific spectral roadway signature, selecting a subset of pixels from the multi-band image, computing a spectral similarity metric to each pixel in the subset, applying a threshold to the similarity metric for each pixel to create a binary-roadway map and analyzing the binary roadway map based at least in part on the headings of the detected moving vehicles to adjust and reapply the threshold to the similarity metric for each pixel to update the binary roadway map and then combining the binary roadway maps for all of the image-specific spectral roadway signatures to generate the road network map.