Polarimetric Enhancements to Electro-Optical Aided Navigation Techniques

Navigation in indoor and urban environments by small unmanned systems is a topic of interest for the Air Force. The Advanced Navigation Technology Center at the Air Force Institute of Technology is continually looking for novel approaches to navigation in GPS deprived environments. Inertial sensors have been coupled with image aided concepts, such as feature tracking, with good results. However, feature density in areas with large, flat, smooth surfaces tends to be low. Polarimetric sensors have been used for surface reconstruction, surface characterization and outdoor navigation. This thesis combines aspects of some of these algorithms along with a realistic, micro-facet polarimetric model and a Kalman filter approach to determine surface structure and platform orientation in an indoor environment. A series of graphical user interfaces were developed to estimate surface material parameters. A more complex simulation software package was used to estimate camera attitude. A physical polarimeter was also designed and built to test the algorithms in a realistic environment. An improvement in attitude estimation of up to 50% was demonstrated.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.