The Optics and Image Processing project, otherwise known as JEFFRIS (Just Evaluatory Float Flying Reeled Imaging System), guides students to take their own aerial images and process them. To take these images, students place Raspberry Pi microcomputers on kites and fly them on MIT’s campus. After these images are taken, the students use their own algorithms to evaluate the areas that they photograph.
JEFFRIS Project Website
https://bwsi-hadr.github.io/JEFFRIS/
Topics Covered
- Kite photograpy
- What are the operational and safety considerations?
- Payload size, weight, and power (SWaP)
- Best practices for launching a kite
- Optics and spectral nature of light
- Light, energy, photons, Blackbody radiation
- Spectrum of light
- Absorption, Reflectivity
- Camera sensors, channels
- Multispectral sensing
- Converting a webcam into near-field IR camera
- Raspberry Pi
- How to connect to Raspberry Pi
- Loading programs
- Connecting a webcam
- Taking images with the webcam and saving
- Visualizing and analyzing multispectral images
- Using openCV to analyze each channel
- Compute photosynthesis levels with NDVI
- Accounting for white balance
- Kite photography exercise
- Students take the raspberry pi cameras they built the previous days, alongside some gopros/other cameras, attach to kites, fly and take aerial images
- Students address issues with stabilization, payload, etc.