Modeling and Simulation Framework for Airborne Camera Systems.

Full Motion Video (FMV) and Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) systems have been used extensively in the recent years to collect overhead imagery to produce value-added geospatial products. In order to better understand the limitations of these systems and to define the best flight conditions under which they can be operated, an integrated modeling and simulation (M&S) framework named Sensair was developed. This paper presents how this tool can be leveraged to simulate data collections with airborne camera systems using different parameters under varied conditions. Sensair can simulate realistic large-scale environments with moving vehicles and generate representative FMV and WAMI high-resolution imagery. The built-in interactive analysis tools enable the study of the different factors impacting the application of computer vision algorithms to aerial images. This paper presents Sensair’s M&S capabilities and describes use cases where the framework is used to perform tasks that include 3D reconstruction and the generation of an image dataset to support the evaluation of vehicle detection approaches.