Applications,databases and open computer vision research from drone videos and images: a survey

Analyzing videos and images captured by unmanned aerial vehicles or aerial drones is an emerging application attracting significant attention from researchers in various areas of computer vision. Currently, the major challenge is the development of autonomous operations to complete missions and replace human operators. In this paper, based on the type of analyzing videos and images captured by drones in computer vision, we have reviewed these applications by categorizing them into three groups. The first group is related to remote sensing with challenges such as camera calibration, image matching, and aerial triangulation. The second group is related to drone-autonomous navigation, in which computer vision methods are designed to explore challenges such as flight control, visual localization and mapping, and target tracking and obstacle detection. The third group is dedicated to using images and videos captured by drones in various applications, such as surveillance, agriculture and forestry, animal detection, disaster detection, and face recognition. Since most of the computer vision methods related to the three categories have been designed for real-world conditions, providing real conditions based on drones is impossible. We aim to explore papers that provide a database for these purposes. In the first two groups, some survey papers presented are current. However, the surveys have not been aimed at exploring any databases. This paper presents a complete review of databases in the first two groups and works that used the databases to apply their methods. Vision-based intelligent applications and their databases are explored in the third group, and we discuss open problems and avenues for future research.

     

Robust Fault Diagnosis for Quadrotor UAVs Using Adaptive Thau Observer

A robust Fault Diagnosis (FD) scheme for a real quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a novel Adaptive Thau observer (ATO) is developed to estimate the quadrotor system states and build a set of offset residuals to indicate actuators’ faults. Based on these residuals, some rules of Fault Diagnosis (FD) are designed to detect and isolate the faults as well as estimate the fault offset parameters. Secondly, a synthetic robust optimization scheme is presented to improve Fault Estimation (FE) accuracies, three key issues include modeling uncertainties, and magnitude order unbalances as well as noises are addressed. Finally, a typical fault of rotors is simulated and injected into one of four rotors of the quadrotor, and experiments for the FD scheme have been carried out. Unlike former research works on the FD schemes for quadrotors, our proposed FD scheme based on the ATO can not only detect and isolate the failed actuators, but also estimate the fault severities. Regardless of roughness of the real flying data, the FD results still have sufficient FE accuracies.     

Analysis of two authorization protocols using Colored Petri Nets

To prevent unauthorized access to protected trusted platform module (TPM) objects, authorization protocols, such as the object-specific authorization protocol (OSAP), have been introduced by the trusted computing group (TCG). By using OSAP, processes trying to gain access to the protected TPM objects need to prove their knowledge of relevant authorization data before access to the objects can be granted. Chen and Ryan’s 2009 analysis has demonstrated OSAP’s authentication vulnerability in sessions with shared authorization data. They also proposed the Session Key Authorization Protocol (SKAP) with fewer stages as an alternative to OSAP. Chen and Ryan’s analysis of SKAP using ProVerif proves the authentication property. The purpose of this paper was to examine the usefulness of Colored Petri Nets (CPN) and CPN Tools for security analysis. Using OSAP and SKAP as case studies, we construct intruder and authentication property models in CPN. CPN Tools is used to verify the authentication property using a Dolev–Yao-based model. Verification of the authentication property in both models using the state space tool produces results consistent with those of Chen and Ryan.     

Amplitudes distribution over two copies of small quantum subsystems

We propose a new formulation of quantum algorithm which allows to distribute amplitudes over two copies of small quantum subsystems. The new method gives a fixed number of copies and applied to the control of multi-qubit system. The analysis for the amount of error due to the distribution process has been presented for a system of 10 qubits with a small quantum subsystems to be copied. The present scheme provides a new way to distribute amplitudes over small quantum subsystems.     

Geodesic Matching with Free Extremities

In this paper, we describe how to use geodesic energies defined on various sets of objects to solve several distance related problems. We first present the theory of metamorphoses and the geodesic distances it induces on a Riemannian manifold, followed by classical applications in landmark and image matching. We then explain how to use the geodesic distance for new issues, which can be embedded in a general framework of matching with free extremities. This is illustrated by results on image and shape averaging and unlabeled landmark matching. Laurent Garcin is a former student of the Ecole Polytechnique. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2004 at the Ecole Normale de Cachan, working on matching methods for landmarks and images. He is an engineer at the French National Geographic Institute. Laurent Younes is a former student of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. He was awarded the Ph.D. from the University Paris Sud in 1989, and the thesis advisor certification from the same university in 1995. He works on the statistical analysis of images and shapes, and on modeling shape deformations and shape spaces. Laurent Younes entered CNRS, the French National Research Center in October 1991, in which he has been a “Directeur de Recherche" until 2003. He is now a professor at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics Department and the Center for Imaging Science at Johns Hopkins University in July 2003.     

A performance evaluation of a fault-tolerant path recommendation protocol for smart transportation system

Recommending traveling vehicles to take a certain path towards their targeted destinations have received great interest recently. At the downtown area several paths can lead to the same located destination, this is due to the grid-layout architecture of modern downtowns. Drivers always wish to reach their destinations as fast as possible and without traveling drastically long distance or without consuming extra fuel. The best path towards any destination is determined based on the relative location of the vehicle from its destination and based on other vehicles traffic distribution on the road network. Although numerous studies have investigated this issue over the road network, the communication failures and their effects on the obtained path have been neglected in those previous studies. In this paper, we investigate these potential faults and their effects on the correctness of the selected paths. We then proposed a new protocol to tackle these potential failures while selecting the best path towards each destination over the road network, fault tolerant path recommendation protocol (FT-PR). From the experimental results, we can see that the FT-PR protocol has a higher success ratio than previous path recommendation protocols, such as ICOD. This is demonstrated by obtaining paths with shorter traveling time and shorter traveling distance. The FT-PR protocol also eliminates extra loops over the road network in each selected path.     

Expression of genes encoding the E2 and E3 components of the Bacillus stearothermophilus pyruvate dehydrogenase complex and the stoichiometry of subunit interaction in assembly in vitro

Genes encoding the dihydrolipoyl acetyltransferase (E2) and dihydrolipoyl dehydrogenase (E3) components of the pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) multienzyme complex from Bacillus stearothermophilus were overexpressed in Escherichia coli. The E2 component was purified as a large soluble aggregate (molecular mass > 1 x 10(6) Da) with the characteristic 532 symmetry of an icosahedral (60-mer) structure, and the E3 as a homodimer with a molecular mass of 110 kDa. The recombinant E2 component in vitro was capable of binding either 60 E3(alpha2) dimers or 60 heterotetramers (alpha2beta2) of the pyruvate decarboxylase (E1) component (also the product of B. stearothermophilus genes overexpressed in E. coli). Assembling the E2 polypeptide chain into the icosahedral E2 core did not impose any restriction on the binding of E1 or E3 to the peripheral subunit-binding domain in each E2 chain. This has important consequences for the stoichiometry of the assembled complex in vivo. The lipoyl domain of the recombinant E2 protein was found to be unlipoylated, but it could be correctly post-translationally modified in vitro using a recombinant lipoate protein ligase from E. coli. The lipoylated E2 component was able to bind recombinant E1 and E3 components in vitro to generate a PDH complex with a catalytic activity comparable with that of the wild-type enzyme. Reversible unfolding of the recombinant E2 and E3 components in 6 M guanidine hydrochloride was possible in the absence of chaperonins, with recoveries of enzymic activities of 95% and 85%, respectively. However, only 26% of the E1 enzyme activity was recovered under the same conditions as a result of irreversible denaturation of both E1alpha and E1beta. This represents the first complete post-translational modification and assembly of a fully active PDH complex from recombinant proteins in vitro.     

NMR study of the transforming growth factor-alpha (TGF-alpha)-epidermal growth factor receptor complex. Visualization of human TGF-alpha binding determinants through nuclear Overhauser enhancement analysis

The study of human transforming growth factor-alpha (TGF-alpha) in complex with the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor extracellular domain has been undertaken in order to generate information on the interactions of these molecules. Analysis of 1H NMR transferred nuclear Overhauser enhancement data for titration of the ligand with the receptor has yielded specific data on the residues of the growth factor involved in contact with the larger protein. Significant increases and decreases in nuclear Overhauser enhancement cross-peak intensity occur upon complexation, and interpretation of these changes indicates that residues of the A- and C-loops of TGF-alpha form the major binding interface, while the B-loop provides a structural scaffold for this site. These results corroborate the conclusions from NMR relaxation studies (Hoyt, D. W., Harkins, R. N., Debanne, M. T., O'Connor-McCourt, M., and Sykes, B. D. (1994) Biochemistry 33, 15283-15292), which suggest that the C-terminal residues of the polypeptide are immobilized upon receptor binding, while the N terminus of the molecule retains considerable flexibility, and are consistent with structure-function studies of the TGF-alpha/EGF system indicating a multidomain binding model. These results give a visualization, for the first time, of native TGF-alpha in complex with the EGF receptor and generate a picture of the ligand-binding site based upon the intact molecule. This will undoubtedly be of utility in the structure-based design of TGF-alpha/EGF agonists and/or antagonists.