A target spatial location method for fuze detonation point based on deep learning and sensor fusion

The spatial location of fuze detonation point is crucial for evaluating the working condition and improving the performance of fuze. Considering the observation safety, the non-contact long-distance accurate measurement technology is essential. In this paper, we propose a method that takes the sensor data of optics, spatial attitude and GPS as input and outputs the spatial position of the fuze detonation point. The proposed method consists of two steps. First, an object detection algorithm with post-processing algorithm is proposed to obtain rich information of the target. The algorithm achieves high-accuracy detection by introducing powerful backbone, attention mechanism, group convolution, and improved multi-scale feature fusion. Second, a Variational Auto-Encoder (VAE) algorithm model improved by dense connection structure and multiple source heterogeneous sensor information fusion structure is proposed as the position regression algorithm. It receives the status information of the observer camera and the output of the object detection algorithm, and then outputs the three-dimensional coordinates of the explosion point. Finally, method validation and performance analysis are realized through virtual scene simulation. Experiment results show the superiority of the proposed object detection algorithm over other typical algorithms on explosion flare detection, with its Average Precision (AP) of 0.889. The positioning error of the spatial location method is 0.896 m, while that of the binocular stereo vision method is 2.863 m. Therefore, the proposed target spatial location method is proved to be effective and accurate.