VERFAHREN ZUR DETEKTION VON KLEINEN OBJEKTEN IN NATUERLICHER UMGEBUNG

摘要

A method and circuit arrangement for detecting small objects in a natural environment, using an electro-optical sensor, scanning the environment, followed by an evaluating unit and an image display device which may be provided. To be able to extract small compact objects out of their natural environment and to suppress irrelevant background information, a digital image is filtered by at least three non-linear filter branches operating in parallel, in such a manner that each filter determines the maximum and minimum of brightness values of in each case one of at least three pixel reference sets. The central pixel is marked in dependence on a threshold value and each marked pixel is enlarged by including the nearest adjacent pixels. The number of pixels marked is counted for a complete image. The current counting results are compared with fixed limits and used for controlling the threshold values. Finally, the enlarged marked pixels are combined by a logic AND operation to form a result set, and the coordinate values of all end result set elements determined in this manner are stored as detected pixels.