Chaotic biogeography-based optimization approach to target detection in UAV surveillance

This paper describes a novel chaotic biogeography-based optimization (CBBO) algorithm for target detection by means of template matching to meet the request of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveillance. Template matching has been widely applied in movement tracking and other fields and makes excellent performances in visual navigation. Biogeography-based optimization (BBO) algorithm emerges as a new kind of optimization method on the basis of biogeography concept. The idea of migration and mutation strategy of species in BBO contributes to solving optimization problems. Our work adds chaotic searching strategy into BBO and applies CBBO in template matching. By utilizing chaotic strategy, the population ergodicity and global searching ability are improved, thus avoiding local optimal solutions during evolution. Applying the algorithm to resolving template matching problem overcomes the defects of common image matching. Series of experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of our modified approach over other algorithms in solving template matching problems. Our modified BBO algorithm performs better in terms of convergence property and robustness when compared with basic BBO.