• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.3-12
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• 2022

Image deblurring aims to remove image blur, which can be generated while shooting the pictures by the movement of objects, camera shake, blurring of focus, and so forth. With the rise in popularity of smartphones, it is common to carry portable digital cameras daily, so image deblurring techniques have become more significant recently. Originally, image deblurring techniques have been studied using traditional optimization techniques. Then with the recent attention on deep learning, deblurring methods based on convolutional neural networks have been actively proposed. However, most of them have been developed while focusing on better performance. Therefore, it is not easy to use in real situations due to the speed of their algorithms. To tackle this problem, we propose a novel deep learning-based deblurring algorithm that can be operated in real-time on HD resolution. In addition, we improved the training and inference process and could increase the performance of our model without any significant effect on the speed and the speed without any significant effect on the performance. As a result, our algorithm achieves real-time performance by processing 33.74 frames per second at 1280×720 resolution. Furthermore, it shows excellent performance compared to its speed with a PSNR of 29.78 and SSIM of 0.9287 with the GoPro dataset.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.515-524
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• 2016

Infrared (IR) wavelength is out of visible range and thus usually cut by hot filters in general commercial cameras. However, some information from the near-IR (NIR) range is known to improve the overall visibility of scene in many cases. For example when there is fog or haze in the scene, NIR image has clearer visibility than visible image because of its stronger penetration property. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for fusing the RGB and NIR images to obtain the enhanced images of the outdoor scenes. First, we construct a weight map by comparing the contrast of the RGB and NIR images, and then fuse the two images based on the weight map. Experimental results show that the proposed method is effective in enhancing visible image and removing the haze.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.16-26
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• 2023

With the growing demand for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), various collision avoidance methods have been proposed, mainly using LiDAR and stereo cameras. However, it is difficult to apply these sensors to small UAVs due to heavy weight or lack of space. The recently proposed methods use a combination of object recognition models and distance sensors, but they lack information on the obstacle size. This disadvantage makes distance determination and obstacle coordination complicated in an early-stage collision avoidance. We propose a method for estimating obstacle sizes using a monocular camera-YOLO and infrared sensor. Our experimental results confirmed that the accuracy was 86.39% within the distance of 40 cm. In addition, the proposed method was applied to a small UAV to confirm whether it was possible to avoid obstacle collisions.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.234-245
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• 2023

The Arena Fragmentation Test(AFT) is designed to analyze warhead performance by measuring fragmentation data. In order to evaluate the results of the AFT, a set of AFT images are captured by high-speed cameras. To detect objects in the AFT image set, ResNet-50 based Faster R-CNN is used as a detection model. However, because of the low resolution of the AFT image set, a detection model has shown low performance. To enhance the performance of the detection model, Super-resolution(SR) methods are used to increase the AFT image set resolution. To this end, The Bicubic method and three SR models: ZSSR, EDSR, and SwinIR are used. The use of SR images results in an increase in the performance of the detection model. While the increase in the number of pixels representing a fragment flame in the AFT images improves the Recall performance of the detection model, the number of pixels representing noise also increases, leading to a slight decreases in Precision performance. Consequently, the F1 score is increased by up to 9 %, demonstrating the effectiveness of SR in enhancing the performance of the detection model.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.287-293
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• 2008

The collimator which makes a collimated beam, is an essential instrument for assembly and evaluation of telescopes. Recently, the Cassegrain type collimator has been widely used for its compact size as the focal length of high resolution cameras becomes longer. However, this kind of collimator has a disadvantage in that the secondary mirror is a heat source which can degrade the evaluation accuracy for an IR camera system. In this paper, we present the fabrication and measurement process for an off-axis parabolic mirror with the physical diameter pf 1 m, effective diameter 930 mm, and the focal length 6 m. After four months of works we obtained the final surface wave-front error of 30.4 nm rms ($\lambda$/138, ${\lambda}=4.2\;{\mu}m$), which is capable of evaluation of an IR camera as well as a visible camera.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.60-67
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• 2022

An Electro-Optical Tracking System (EOTS) is an electric optical system with EO/IR cameras, laser sensors, and an IMU. The EOTS calculates coordinates of targets, using attitude and acceleration measured by the IMU. In particular for an armed aircraft, the performance of the weapon system depends on how quickly and accurately it acquires the target coordinates. The IMU should be operated after alignment is complete, to meet the coordinate accuracy required by the weapon system so the initial stabilization time of the IMU should be reduced, by quickly measuring the attitude and acceleration. Alignment is the process of determining the initial attitude by resolving the attitude error of the IMU, and the IMU of mission equipment such as an airborne EOTS, uses velocity matching based on the velocity from GPS/INS for aircraft navigation. In this paper, a method is presented to improve the transfer alignment performance of the airborne EOTS, by maneuvering aircraft and the mission equipment. First, the performance factor of the alignment was identified, as a heading error through the velocity matching model and simulation results. Then acceleration maneuvers and attitude changes were necessary, to correct the error. As a result of flight tests applied to an EOTS on a OOO aircraft system, the transfer alignment performance was improved as the duration time was decreased, by more than five times when the aircraft accelerated by more than 0.2g and the EOTS was moving until 6.7deg/s.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.36 no.7
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• pp.680-687
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• 2008

This paper presents map creation algorithm and initial attitude estimation method for the proposed optical head tracker system. The optical head tracker system consists of the IR stereo cameras and infrared LEDs as features on the helmet. In order for the stereo camera to track the luminous LEDs, it must take in to account the light radiation from the LEDs to determine the position of the center points. The proposed map creation algorithm makes map data about the position of features center points on the helmet frame. Also, initial attitude estimation method is proposed to estimate the initial attitude and position of a pilot head from the camera frame by the use of the feature pattern on the helmet. Therefore, the head motion can be expressed with respect to the body frame of a flight.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.669-681
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• 2019

Bridge collapses may deliver a huge impact on our society in a very negative way. Out of many reasons why bridges collapse, poor maintenance is becoming a main contributing factor to many recent collapses. Furthermore, the aging of bridges is able to make the situation much worse. In order to prevent this unwanted event, it is indispensable to conduct continuous bridge monitoring and timely maintenance. Visual inspection is the most widely used method, but it is heavily dependent on the experience of the inspectors. It is also time-consuming, labor-intensive, costly, disruptive, and even unsafe for the inspectors. In order to address its limitations, in recent years increasing interests have been paid to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which is expected to make the inspection process safer, faster and more cost-effective. In addition, it can cover the area where it is too hard to reach by inspectors. However, this strategy is still in a primitive stage because there are many things to be addressed for real implementation. In this paper, a typical procedure of bridge inspection using UAVs consisting of three phases (i.e., pre-inspection, inspection, and post-inspection phases) and the detailed tasks by phase are described. Also, three major challenges, which are related to a UAV's flight, image data acquisition, and damage identification, respectively, are identified from a practical perspective (e.g., localization of a UAV under the bridge, high-quality image capture, etc.) and their possible solutions are discussed by examining recently developed or currently developing techniques such as the graph-based localization algorithm, and the image quality assessment and enhancement strategy. In particular, deep learning based algorithms such as R-CNN and Mask R-CNN for classifying, localizing and quantifying several damage types (e.g., cracks, corrosion, spalling, efflorescence, etc.) in an automatic manner are discussed. This strategy is based on a huge amount of image data obtained from unmanned inspection equipment consisting of the UAV and imaging devices (vision and IR cameras).

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.33 no.10
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• pp.414-421
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• 2023

Infrared radiation (IR) refers to the region of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum where wavelengths range from about 700 nm to 1 mm. Any object with a temperature above absolute zero (0 K) radiates in the infrared region, and a material that transmits radiant energy in the range of 0.74 to 1.4 um is referred to as a near-infrared optical material. Germanate-based glass is attracting attention as a glass material for infrared optical lenses because of its simple manufacturing process. With the recent development of the glass molding press (GMP) process, thermal imaging cameras using oxide-based infrared lenses can be easily mass-produced, expanding their uses. To improve the mechanical and optical properties of commercial materials consisting of ternary systems, germanate-based heavy metal oxide glasses were prepared using a melt-cooling method. The fabricated samples were evaluated for thermal, structural, and optical properties using DSC, XRD, and XRF, respectively. To derive a composition with high glass stability for lens applications, ZnO and Sb₂O₃ were substituted at 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 mol%. The glass with 1 mol% added Sb₂O₃ was confirmed to have the optimal conditions, with an optical transmittance of 80 % or more, a glass transition temperature of 660 ℃, a refractive index of 1.810, and a Vickers hardness of 558. The possibility of its application as an alternative infrared lens material to existing commercial materials capable of GMP processing was confirmed.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.957-964
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• 2016

Acquisition of reliable depth maps is a critical requirement in many applications such as 3D videos and free-viewpoint TV. Depth information can be obtained from the object directly using physical sensors, such as infrared ray (IR) sensors. Recently, Time-of-Flight (ToF) range camera including KINECT depth camera became popular alternatives for dense depth sensing. Although ToF cameras can capture depth information for object in real time, but are noisy and subject to low resolutions. Recently, filter-based depth up-sampling algorithms such as joint bilateral upsampling (JBU) and noise-aware filter for depth up-sampling (NAFDU) have been proposed to get high quality depth information. However, these methods often lead to texture copying in the upsampled depth map. To overcome this limitation, we formulate a convex optimization problem using higher order regularization for depth map upsampling. We decrease the texture copying problem of the upsampled depth map by using edge weighting term that chosen by the edge information. Experimental results have shown that our scheme produced more reliable depth maps compared with previous methods.