Aerial Image Registration for Grasping Road Conditions

It is useful to obtain road traffic information quickly for disaster rescue and remediation activities. Utilizing aerial images for determining road traffic conditions is an effective means that is not affected by the situation on the ground. In particular, helicopters can be used to not only grasp road traffic conditions but also aid rescue activities. Moreover, systems that transmit real-time images to ground stations, such as helicopter relay systems and helicopter satellite systems, have attracted attention. In fact, such systems widely contributed to the rescue activities after the Kumamoto earthquakes that occurred in April 2016. However, there is a large difference between the fixation point and position of photographing because aerial images are obtained obliquely with respect to the ground surface, which remains a problem. In this study, we identify the fixation point without utilizing any large special equipment by only using information from the global positioning system (GPS) and a map. Ultimately, we aim to use the results of registration between the images and maps to grasp road traffic conditions.