Patent · US Active

Drone with a front-view camera with segmentation of the sky image for auto-exposure control

US10171746B2 · kind B2 · utility

1Cited by
0References
8Claims
0Family size

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Key dates

Filing dateSep 2, 2016
Grant dateJan 1, 2019
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 31, 2037

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC B)Performing Operations; Transporting
  • CPC primaryB64U2101/30
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The drone comprises a camera (14), an inertial unit (46) measuring the drone angles, and an extractor module (52) delivering image data of a mobile capture area of reduced size dynamically displaced in a direction opposite to that of the variations of angle measured by the inertial unit. The module analyses the image data elements of the useful area to assign to each one a weighting coefficient representative of a probability of belonging to the sky, and defines dynamically a boundary of segmentation (F) of the useful area between sky and ground as a function of these weighting coefficients. Two distinct groups of regions of interest ROIs are defined, for the sky area and for the ground area, respectively, and the dynamic exposure control means are controlled as a function of the image data of the ROIs of one of these groups, in particular by excluding the ROIs of the sky area.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.