Imaging device could save soldiers lives
As VIPs line up for a reception with the president and foreign leaders, impassive security guards look each person up and down, alert to any clue of malicious intent.
Rick Blum, professor of electrical and computer engineering, hopes to equip these soldiers and security guards with a device that can gain them a few potentially life-saving seconds in the search for concealed weapons.
Blum and his graduate students have devised an image fusion system that uses two cameras to create an image similar to an X-ray. The system combines a photo taken by a digital camera with a photo of the same subject taken by a millimeter-wave (MMW) camera to create a composite photo that exposes much more than either photo reveals by itself.
Blum’s groundbreaking research was featured in a July 8 article on ABCNews.com. To read the article, go to Revealing Pair of Eyes.
Saving lives
Blum sees a growing need for concealed weapons detection in Iraq, where more than 70 American soldiers have been killed, many at checkpoints, since major hostilities ended in April.
It would really be great to be able to give this technology to police and to military troops in Iraq so they can determine as quickly as possible whether or not there is an issue, Blum says.
With a portable system, the guards on duty at the presidential VIP reception could scan the fused and rapidly transmitted iAnother advantage of Blum’s system is that, unlike X-rays, MMW cause no physical harm to a person and can thus be taken without a person’s permission or knowledge.
Seeing the gunman and the gun
The accompanying set of three photos illustrates how image fusion works. Each shows the same shot of the same three men.
In the top image, taken with a digital camera, you can see the men’s faces and clothing. In the center image, taken with an MMW camera, you see no physical features or clothing, but you can peer past their clothing and see that the man on the right has a gun underneath his sweater.
On the bottom is the fused image, which police and military personnel are seeking. Here, you see enough of the men’s clothing and features to tell them apart. You can also make out the unmistakable outline of a gun under the third man’s sweater.
Blum’s research group has developed new image-fusion algorithms that perform better than all existing approaches. They are one of the few groups to perform careful performance analysis and classification of existing approaches. Recently, Blum and his students have begun preliminary studies of a portable image-fusion system using wireless communication links.
One obstacle Blum has encountered is cost. MMW cameras are far too expensive for the typical police department budget; in fact, there are only a handful of the cameras in the U.S.
Advances in sensors are very likely to overcome this problem. As an alternate approach, Blum has investigated using infrared sensors in place of MMW cameras. So far, the deficiencies of the infrared sensors have hindered progress, but his efforts continue.
In Blum’s algorithms, image fusion is accomplished in the wavelet transform domain. The two iBlum’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the State of Pennsylvania, AT&T, the U.S. Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. He is seeking additional funding to construct a portable image-fusion system using wireless communication links.
Blum, whose research specialties are wireless communications and signal processing, originally had no intention of making a foray into concealed-weapon detection. Eight years ago, however, while doing research at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y., he met researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology who were studying sensors for a law-enforcement client.
Blum quickly saw a natural fit between signal processing and sensors. He also met police, who described their need for a single image that would reveal both weapon and scene, thus enabling them to best use their knowledge and experience to quickly assess a situation.
To read Blum’s research on image fusion, go to the PDF file Image Fusion with some Emphasis on CWD.
--Kurt Pfitzer
kap4@lehigh.edu
Rick Blum, professor of electrical and computer engineering, hopes to equip these soldiers and security guards with a device that can gain them a few potentially life-saving seconds in the search for concealed weapons.
Blum and his graduate students have devised an image fusion system that uses two cameras to create an image similar to an X-ray. The system combines a photo taken by a digital camera with a photo of the same subject taken by a millimeter-wave (MMW) camera to create a composite photo that exposes much more than either photo reveals by itself.
Blum’s groundbreaking research was featured in a July 8 article on ABCNews.com. To read the article, go to Revealing Pair of Eyes.
Saving lives
Blum sees a growing need for concealed weapons detection in Iraq, where more than 70 American soldiers have been killed, many at checkpoints, since major hostilities ended in April.
It would really be great to be able to give this technology to police and to military troops in Iraq so they can determine as quickly as possible whether or not there is an issue, Blum says.
With a portable system, the guards on duty at the presidential VIP reception could scan the fused and rapidly transmitted iAnother advantage of Blum’s system is that, unlike X-rays, MMW cause no physical harm to a person and can thus be taken without a person’s permission or knowledge.
Seeing the gunman and the gun
The accompanying set of three photos illustrates how image fusion works. Each shows the same shot of the same three men.
In the top image, taken with a digital camera, you can see the men’s faces and clothing. In the center image, taken with an MMW camera, you see no physical features or clothing, but you can peer past their clothing and see that the man on the right has a gun underneath his sweater.
On the bottom is the fused image, which police and military personnel are seeking. Here, you see enough of the men’s clothing and features to tell them apart. You can also make out the unmistakable outline of a gun under the third man’s sweater.
Blum’s research group has developed new image-fusion algorithms that perform better than all existing approaches. They are one of the few groups to perform careful performance analysis and classification of existing approaches. Recently, Blum and his students have begun preliminary studies of a portable image-fusion system using wireless communication links.
One obstacle Blum has encountered is cost. MMW cameras are far too expensive for the typical police department budget; in fact, there are only a handful of the cameras in the U.S.
Advances in sensors are very likely to overcome this problem. As an alternate approach, Blum has investigated using infrared sensors in place of MMW cameras. So far, the deficiencies of the infrared sensors have hindered progress, but his efforts continue.
In Blum’s algorithms, image fusion is accomplished in the wavelet transform domain. The two iBlum’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the State of Pennsylvania, AT&T, the U.S. Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. He is seeking additional funding to construct a portable image-fusion system using wireless communication links.
Blum, whose research specialties are wireless communications and signal processing, originally had no intention of making a foray into concealed-weapon detection. Eight years ago, however, while doing research at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y., he met researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology who were studying sensors for a law-enforcement client.
Blum quickly saw a natural fit between signal processing and sensors. He also met police, who described their need for a single image that would reveal both weapon and scene, thus enabling them to best use their knowledge and experience to quickly assess a situation.
To read Blum’s research on image fusion, go to the PDF file Image Fusion with some Emphasis on CWD.
--Kurt Pfitzer
kap4@lehigh.edu
Posted on:
Monday, July 07, 2003
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