VCU UAV Video System

From HackRVA

WORK IN PROGRESS

5ghz pure 802.11n network link between helicopter and base station computer.

HD video camera shooting 1080i HD video transferred uncompressed over HDMI to a small form factor computer. This computer would strip out the audio, add in telemetry data from the FCS for each frame, convert the video to H.264 using ffmpeg and x264 (unless the computer isn't powerful enough, then we'll have to move to FPGA based encoding). This H.264 video would be streamed to an imaging client base station.

At the base station, a client would be written that first just displays the streaming video. Any time a target of interest is seen, a bookmark would be added. This bookmarked frame could either be processed after the flight, or simultaneously on a separate client computer.

During playback, the streaming video could be viewed to find the best view of the target. Zoom in/out would be available. An operator could click on a target, input as much information as is able to be seen about the target (shape, color, letter, letter color) which would then be saved to a data file with georeferenced location data based on telemetry data and optics analysis.

After all the targets have been identified, the user can click a print button, which would take the information in the file on all of the targets and print them out next to pictures of the actual targets on an inkjet printer on the field. Adding in VCU logos and graphics at the top of the page would also be possible.