Integration of vision and decision-making in an autonomous airborne vehicle for traffic surveillance

Abstract

In this paper we present a system which integrates computer vision and decision-making in an autonomous airborne vehicle that performs traffic surveillance tasks. The main factors that make the integration of vision and decision-making a challenging problem are: the qualitatively different kind of information at the decision-making and vision levels, the need for integration of dynamically acquired information with a priori knowledge, e.g. GIS information, and the need of close feedback and guidance of the vision module by the decision-making module. Given the complex interaction between the vision module and the decision-making module we propose the adoption of an intermediate structure, called Scene Information Manager, and describe its structure and functionalities.