Advanced Target Tracking System for Armoured Vehicles

Project Title

Advanced Target Tracking System for Armoured Vehicles

Project Area of Specialization RoboticsProject Summary

Advanced Target Tracking System for Armoured Vehicles---a standalone system working in a closed loop visual feedback control system. In the Fire Control System (FCS) of armoured vehicle for the view of field there are only Panaromic sights and Thermal Imager (TI) sights. For both the Gunner and Commander it is very difficult to manually track and hit the target effectively because of jolting motion of armoured vehicle and psychology of human in the scenario of war in the battle field. To accomplish this task, Operation Unit having a camera along with laser mounted on an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) acting as an armoured vehicle and Control Unit having Auto-Tracker and joy stick for the control of UGV have been designed. The video from UGV is recieved on the Control Unit, where algorithms for tracking are performed by Auto-Tracker using Digital Image Processing on MATLAB and an error signal generated, which is sent to Operation Unit and camera along with laser tracks the target locked by the user. The feature of real-time Auto-Tracking the target in the armoured vehicle increases the probability of hit and destroy the target.

Acknowledgement___This Industrial Project is officially recommended by Advanced System Rebuild Factory(ASRF), Heavey Industries Taxila (HIT), for the Ministry of Defence, Government of Pakistan vide letter number 5901/Internship/ASRF dated Sep12, 2018.

Project Objectives Automate the Target Tracking System in Armoured Vehicles instead of Mannual Tracking

In the Fire Control System (FCS) of armoured vehicles, the Vision System (VS) of armoured vehicles consists of only Panoramic sights and Thermal Imager (TI) sights usually utilizes CCD (charge-coupled device) images and FLIR (forward-looking infrared) images for the view of field. Therefore, it is very difficult to fire manually and damage the target effectively. The feature of real time Auto-Tracking the target in the armoured vehicles (i.e. AL-Khalid Tank) increases the probability of hit and destroy the target.

  

Project Implementation Method Digital Image Processing Proposed Algorithm      procedureAnomalous Object Detection

1    Input: Prior frame(fp) and current frame(fc)

2    Subtraction: S = fp - fc

3    Binarization of S      B    

4    Morphological Operations: dilation, erosion etc.

5    Moving target detected in current frame (fc) located  by a red bounding box

6    Target object cropped: T

       end procedure

     procedure Target Tracking

7      Input: Target Object(T) and next frame(fn)

8      Feature Extraction of target(T) and next frame(fn)

9      Feature matching in both images

10    Recognizes target in next frame(fn) and located by a green

         bounding box patch

        end procedure

Digital Signal Processing  Proposed Algorithm    procedure Error Signal Generation

1   input : center of detected target and center of frame

2   Subtraction = Error Signal

3   Wirelessly Transmit Error Signal to Operation Unit

   end procedure

   procedure Error Correction and Tracking Control

4   Error Correction by Servo Controller of Operation Unit

5   Tracking Control Signal generated

6   Servo Movement to keep target in scene

   end procedure  

Benefits of the Project

In Military and Defence, the advantages of the Advanced Target Tracking System feature in Armoured Vehicle i.e. Al-Khalid Tank are:

•  Automate Target Tracking
•  High Hit Probability
•  Fast Range Determination
•  Accurate Velocity

       

This system can be used with some modifications perspective to the application like:

• Avionics systems and Drones
• Security and Surveillance
• Robotics and Automation
• Traffic Monitoring

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Operational Architecture of Vision Controlled Motion

      Closed loop visual feedback Control System for Automatic Tracking

        Final Project HW/SW Integrated System Layout

              Results

Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemType of Industry Others , Security Technologies Artificial Intelligence(AI), RoboticsSustainable Development Goals Industry, Innovation and InfrastructureRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	43450
Arduino	Equipment	2	700	1400
Bluetooth	Equipment	2	500	1000
Laser	Equipment	1	150	150
connecting wires	Equipment	4	150	600
6V Battery	Equipment	1	1000	1000
Servo Motor	Equipment	1	1000	1000
Camera	Equipment	1	10000	10000
RC Car	Equipment	1	11500	11500
UGV Metallic Model	Equipment	1	10000	10000
Spray paints	Equipment	3	200	600
PCB	Equipment	1	500	500
Switch Buttons + Paper tape + Screws	Equipment	1	100	100
Poster + Brochure	Miscellaneous	1	2600	2600
Thesis/Report	Miscellaneous	2	1500	3000