IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - March 2018 - 53

COOrdINATE TrANSfOrMATION
Visualizing the image in the digital screen involves rendering
the image with appropriate coordinate transformation. This
transformation is also called window-to-viewport or display
transformation [5], and it is performed by (4)-(6):
x i = x 0 + S x ^ x vmax - X ih

(4)

y i = y 0 + S y ^ y vmax - Yih

(5)

z i = z 0 + S z ^ z vmax - Z ih,

(6)

The tracking algorithm must be
able to track single or multiple
objects and stationary objects or
a mix of stationary and
moving objects.
IMAGE MOSAICkING

where ^ x i, y i, z ih are the coordinates in the screen and (S x, S y, S z)
are the scale factors in the orthogonal X, Y, and Z direction of
the IFOV. Also, (x 0, y 0, z 0) and (x vmax, y vmax, z vmax) are the coordinates of the origin and maximum of the viewport or screen.

SpATIAl ObjECT TrACkING
Tracking moving objects or objects of interest in the IFOV
of the drone while simultaneously computing the location
and motion parameters is an important function. The tracking algorithm must be able to track single or multiple
objects and stationary objects or a mix of stationary and
moving objects. Unlike many computer tracking algorithms
where the sensor is stationary, in a drone-GIS system, the
sensor is moving. Therefore, many of the conventional
tracking algorithms used in CV fail to perform because of
issues pertaining to rapid motion, scale, changes in illumination, and occlusion of the tracked object. Out of many
tracking algorithms and their variants, particle filtering and
Kalman filtering and their variants yield better results. Kalman filtering is used for object tracking because it is convenient for tracking objects where the motion model is known.
In the case of a drone-GIS system, the estimate of the
object's next location is computed using the Kalman filter
and is transmitted back to command and control parameters
for the aerial movement of the drone in the form of
^ x, y, z, a, i, U h [15]-[17].

Mosaicking is the process of stitching successive instances of
image frames acquired from the IFOV to generate a panoramic view of the terrain under consideration [12], [13].
This is performed through stitching the image junctions by
establishing a correspondence between the scale invariant
features that are computed by the Lowe's SIFT algorithm [9],
[10] of the adjacent image frames.

COMPUTATIONS AND ALGORITHMS
The algorithms required for the computation of the geospatial
data acquired by the drone's sensor are enumerated in this section. There are many variants of these algorithms available in
the literature [1], [4], [7]. Much effort has been put into optimizing these algorithms in software implementation and realizing them in the form of hardware. Some of these algorithms
are available as integrated circuits that can be used to realize an
overall system.
The computing algorithms required to achieve the specifications mentioned in this article are listed in Table 1. The
drone is a real-time system designed to operate in an environment that has been optimized in terms of the size and
weight of the aerial platform, the onboard power supply
that supports the aerial flight, the functioning of the
onboard sensors, and the communication systems [1].
Therefore, the computing requirements need to beoptimally
designed as well, keeping in mind the SWAP constraints of
the drone.

CONCLUSION
Drone

Flight Command
from Ground
Pilot

Spatial Data
Acquisition

IFOV
Ground
Pilot

GIS
Ground
Station

FIGURE 3. A schematic of the acquisition and processing of spatial data by a drone-GIS combination.

A GIS system working in tandem with a drone is a potential
system for the online acquisition, processing, and analysis
of spatiotemporal information. A GIS is a computational
and visualization platform that has applications in many
domains. A generic GIS has many computations and functions embedded in its applications; thus, the computational
footprint of the GIS is quite large. Keeping in mind the
SWAP constraints on function operation, the most frequently used GIS system functions and those that require the
least power are the best candidates when designing a
SWAP-constrained GIS. The GIS for a drone-based application performs specific functions for real-time spatial information processing. Therefore, while designing a GIS for a
drone-based application, specific functions that are needed
for the applications need to be precisely chosen. The computations are selected in such a manner that the GIS will
march 2018

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IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine

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