Single-Camera Panoramic-Imaging Systems

Panoramic detection systems (PDSs) are developmental video monitoring and image-data processing systems that, as their name indicates, acquire panoramic views. More specifically, a PDS acquires images from an approximately cylindrical field of view that surrounds an observation platform. In example of a major class of intended applications, a PDS mounted on top of a motor vehicle could be used to obtain unobstructed views of the surroundings (see Figure 1). In another such example, a PDS could be mounted above a roadway intersection for monitoring approaching and receding vehicles in order to provide image data on the vehicles as input to an automated traffic-control system. In either application, a running archive of the image data acquired by the PDS could be maintained as a means of reconstructing the events leading up to a vehicular collision: used in this way, a PDS would be analogous to an aircraft “black box” data recorder.