Counting Static Targets Using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle On-the-Fly and Autonomously

The counting of static targets on ground using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is proposed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to do such counting on-the-fly and autonomously. The flight path is programmed before take-off. The UAV captures images of the ground which are processed consecutively on-the-fly to count the number of targets along the flight path. Each image is processed using the proposed target-counting algorithm. First, targets' centers are detected in the current image, and second, the targets that were not covered in previous images are identified and counted. The performance of the algorithm depends on its ability to identify in the current image what targets were already counted in previous images, and this ability is affected by the limited accuracy of the UAV to stay on the flight path in the presence of wind. In the experimental evaluation, targets were distributed on ground on three different configurations: one line of targets along the flight path, parallel lines of targets at an angle with the flight path, and random. The accuracy of the target count was 96.0%, 88.9% and 91.9% respectively.