From Pixels to Planes: Minimum Ground Sample Distance for Aircraft
This addresses the problem of optimizing camera design for high-altitude platforms to reduce weight while maintaining detection accuracy, but it is incremental as it applies an existing method to new data.
This study tackled the problem of determining the minimum ground sample distance (GSD) needed for accurate aircraft detection, finding that at least 0.86m GSD is required, especially for aircraft with wingspans under 20 meters.
This study investigates the impact of ground sample distance (GSD) on the detection performance of various sized aircraft using the proprietary AllPlanes 120 dataset. The data set comprises 120 civilian, military and museum aircraft from multiple satellite/aerial sources collected over two years. Resolutions ranging from 2.4 to 0.3 meters GSD were simulated. Performance metrics were derived from a YOLOv8s model trained on down-sampled versions of zoom level 19 (0.3m GSD) imagery. The results indicate that a GSD of at least 0.86m is required to accurately detect most aircraft, particularly those with wingspans shorter than 20 meters. Due to weight constraints in high-altitude platforms, this GSD specification can inform camera design to minimize weight while maintaining detection accuracy.