Image Processing in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

Even flying attempts of humans are back to centuries; modern aviation started in the eighteenth century with hot air balloons. The speed of mechanization and the developments in electronics provided rapid improvements in aviation, and in the last century, planes became the most important vehicles in the world for military, civil, and engineering usages. Drones—or unmanned aerial vehicles—are the results of wireless developments while they can be controlled remotely or autonomously. Their different sizes and endurances make them suitable for any kind of tasks that humans are not able to perform or reach. Thus, the obtained images also become important, and processing these images require different algorithms for different kinds of applications. In this chapter, UAVs are classified according to the image processing types as segmentation and analysis, identification and prediction, and 3D reconstruction and applications and example applications, and considered image processing techniques are presented for each category with their details. Also, recent classifications are extended by considering new researches and applications.