Engineering Commons^™

Automated Image Interpretation For Science Autonomy In Robotic Planetary Exploration, Raymond Francis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Advances in the capabilities of robotic planetary exploration missions have increased the wealth of scientific data they produce, presenting challenges for mission science and operations imposed by the limits of interplanetary radio communications. These data budget pressures can be relieved by increased robotic autonomy, both for onboard operations tasks and for decision- making in response to science data.

This thesis presents new techniques in automated image interpretation for natural scenes of relevance to planetary science and exploration, and elaborates autonomy scenarios under which they could be used to extend the reach and performance of exploration missions on planetary surfaces.

Two …

The Role Of Frame Selection And Bispectrum Phase Reconstruction For Speckle Imaging Through Atmospheric Turbulence, Elizabeth A. Harpold

Theses and Dissertations

Frame selection using quality sharpness metrics have been shown in previous AFIT theses, to be effective in improving the final product of images obtained using adaptive optics. This thesis extends this idea to noncompensated speckle image data. Speckle image reconstruction is simulated with and without frame selection. Speckle images require the processing of hundreds of data frames. Frame selection is a method of reducing the amount of data required to reconstruct the image. A collection of short exposure image data frames of a single object are sorted based on sharpness metrics. Only the highest quality frames are retained and processed …