VIS-NIR multispectral for camouflage detection: campaign analysis

With the improvements of camouflage capacities, some threats are more and more difficult to detect with conventional imaging devices. For example, some camouflage techniques allow being undetectable both on color camera and thermal camera, at the same time. <br/><br/> By implementing a mosaic multispectral technology, Safran designed a compact and lightweight camera able to create a snapshot multispectral image of nine spectral bands. The multispectral images acquired with this camera are numerically treated and projected in an adapted space in order to maximize the visual contrast between each point and its surrounding. <br/><br/>Last year, Safran designed a real-time camouflage detection device integrated in an armored vehicle sight system and conducted several test campaigns, mainly in Mid-European context. This work was performed in the context of a collaborative project between ONERA and Safran, with the support of DGA. <br/><br/>With this first campaign, we compared conventional cameras and a multispectral camera with different criteria such as metric comparison and visual comparison. This study helped us on the optimization of our computer algorithm in order to maximize our detection rates.