INNOVATIVE IMAGING & RESEARCH CORP — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A17-060

Description

Warfighters responsible for planning and conducting A2/AD entry operations require up-to-date, high-quality information within dynamic littoral zones. We plan to develop an easily deployable day-night measurement capability to accurately measure bathymetry, topography, currents and water surface temperature in near real-time from sensors and small computing capabilities housed within small multi-rotor vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UASs. For decades it has been known that nearshore bathymetry can be estimated using gravity wave dispersion relationships derived from a sequential set of downward-looking images (time series), but the current implementation is insufficient to meet the needs of the warfighter. Our approach integrates the cBathy and three-dimensional Fourier based gravity wave dispersion algorithms using thermal and visible imagery to produce robust nearshore bathymetry with a well-understood uncertainty estimate. The sensitivity of the algorithms to direct georeferencing will be explored to reduce the need for ground control points and fiducials for nighttime operation. Structure from Motion techniques using both visible and thermal imagery will generate topographic subaerial dense point clouds with RGB and temperature overlays. Small low power computing components will enable on-board real-time processing so information can be transmitted to ground personnel in near real-time.