An image method of velocity measurement based on the smearing effect

A new image method of velocity measurement based on the smearing effect is presented. The producing mechanism of the smearing effect is introduced, and the relationship between the trailing smear and the relative movement of the camera and the target is also studied. The kinetic model is built to describe the movement of the camera, target and the image. The pixel size and the scale of the camera, which can influence the precision of the velocity measurement, are also discussed in this paper. An optimal estimation algorithm for measuring the length of the trailing smear is designed based on the smear recovering algorithm and the cross-correlation analysis technology. To get the suitable pictures, the structure of the camera system is discussed then. The simulation results show that the new algorithm has a good performance in measuring velocity of the aircraft which is flying at a uniform speed.