System and method for detecting, tracking and estimating the speed of vehicles from a mobile platform

A method for measuring ground vehicle speed comprising:

• positioning an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in proximity to a roadway, the UAV flying under control and navigation of a UAV control unit, and further carrying camera and monitoring equipment, the camera and monitoring equipment including an onboard computing system, and a camera with a wide angle lens and a camera with a telephoto lens, the cameras mounted on a pan/tilt device;
• using a computer vision algorithm to detect vehicles moving on a roadway despite motion created by movement of the UAV, wherein the computer vision algorithm is operated by the on-board computing system;
• moving the cameras mounted on the pan/tilt device under the direction of the computer vision algorithm to maintain a target vehicle of the detected moving vehicles in view;
• and
• measuring a speed of the target vehicle, including following the target vehicle for at least a kilometer or half a minute to measure the vehicle's speed by a distance the UAV has travelled as measured by a Global Positioning System (GPS).

A method for detecting, tracking and estimating speeds of vehicles on a roadway, the method comprising:

• positioning an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in proximity to a roadway, the UAV flying under control and navigation of a UAV control unit, and further carrying camera and monitoring equipment, the camera and monitoring equipment including an onboard computing system, and a camera with a wide angle lens and a camera with a telephoto lens, the cameras mounted on a pan/tilt device;
• directing the pan/tilt controlled cameras to view the roadway;
• and
• engaging a moving vehicle monitoring procedure which includes:
• detecting moving vehicles from a video feed of the camera with the wide-angle-lens;
• estimating vehicle speed for each moving vehicle in the video feed;
• determining a target vehicle to continue to track from among the vehicles in the video feed;
• tracking the target vehicle;
• recording video evidence of the target vehicle by the camera with the wide-angle lens;
• serving the pan/tilt device to center the target vehicle in the frame of the video feed;
• measuring the target vehicle speed;
• taking a zoomed-in snapshot of the target vehicle license plate with the camera with the telephoto lens when the target vehicle license plate is centered in the frame of the camera with the wide angle lens;
• and
• recording the target vehicle license plate when it is determined the target vehicle license plate is readable and that sufficient speed evidence of the target vehicle has been collected.

A speed measurement system to detect, track and determine a speed of a vehicle on a roadway, the system comprising:

• an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV);
• a UAV control unit positioned on the UAV and configured to control the operation and navigation of the UAV;
• a camera and monitoring system carried on the UAV and controlled by the UAV control unit, and including:
• a camera with a wide angle lens and a camera with a telephoto lens, the cameras mounted on a pan/tilt device connected to the UAV by a mounting bracket, and
• an on-board computing system configured to operate a moving vehicle monitoring procedure (MVMP) which includes a tracking algorithm that actively controls movement of the pan/tilt device, to coordinate movement of the camera with the wide angle lens and the camera with the telephoto lens to obtain an image of a license plate from a target vehicle being tracked by the MVMP procedure and to determine a speed of the target vehicle,
• wherein the UAV control uses Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates and camera geometry, altitude, and location of the target vehicle in the image to measure the target vehicle speed.