US 12,420,951 B2
Calibration of aircraft mounted cameras
Tom M. Neuman, Fairfax, VA (US); and Matthew M. Warren, Silver Spring, MD (US)
Assigned to Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc., Plano, TX (US); and Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha, Toyota (JP)
Filed by Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc., Plano, TX (US)
Filed on Sep. 30, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/957,016.
Prior Publication US 2024/0109671 A1, Apr. 4, 2024
Int. Cl. B64D 47/08 (2006.01); B64D 47/02 (2006.01); G03B 15/00 (2021.01); G06T 7/70 (2017.01); G06T 7/80 (2017.01); H04N 13/239 (2018.01); H04N 17/00 (2006.01)
CPC B64D 47/08 (2013.01) [B64D 47/02 (2013.01); G03B 15/006 (2013.01); G06T 7/70 (2017.01); G06T 7/85 (2017.01); H04N 13/239 (2018.05); H04N 17/002 (2013.01); G06T 2207/10012 (2013.01); G06T 2207/30261 (2013.01)] 23 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An aircraft, comprising:
an aircraft body including a fuselage and a nose;
a wing including a first wing tip and a second wing tip located on opposite sides of the aircraft body;
a camera located on the wing and having a field of view that is less than 180 degrees and includes a portion of a flight environment and a portion of the aircraft body;
a calibration target located in the field of view and being a profile of at least a portion of the fuselage or the nose, whereby the profile is not defined by a separate structure attached to the fuselage or nose,
when appearing in visual data acquired by the camera, the profile being detectable by a computer vision system;
a data store storing a calibrated position of the calibration target relative to the camera; and
a processor operatively connected to the camera and the data store, the processor being configured to analyze the visual data to determine an offset of the camera relative to the calibration target by comparing the calibrated position and an in-flight position of the calibration target relative to the camera in the acquired visual data.