Dynamic Motion Planning for Aerial Surveillance on a Fixed-Wing UAV

We present an efficient path planning algorithm for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle surveying a cluttered urban landscape. A special emphasis is on maximizing area surveyed while adhering to constraints of the UAV and partially known and updating environment. A Voronoi bias is introduced in the probabilistic roadmap building phase to identify certain critical milestones for maximal surveillance of the search space. A kinematically feasible but coarse tour connecting these milestones is generated by the global path planner. A local path planner then generates smooth motion primitives between consecutive nodes of the global path based on UAV as a Dubins vehicle and taking into account any impending obstacles. A Markov Decision Process (MDP) models the control policy for the UAV and determines the optimal action to be undertaken for evading the obstacles in the vicinity with minimal deviation from current path. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm is evaluated in an updating simulation environment with dynamic and static obstacles.Comment: Accepted at International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems 201

High Density Impulse Noise Detection using Fuzzy C-means Algorithm

A new technique for detecting the high density impulse noise from corrupted images using Fuzzy C-means algorithm is proposed. The algorithm is iterative in nature and preserves more image details in high noise environment. Fuzzy C-means is initially used to cluster the image data. The application of Fuzzy C-means algorithm in the detection phase provides an optimum classification of noisy data and uncorrupted image data so that the pictorial information remains well preserved. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms existing well-known techniques. Results show that with the increase in percentage of noise density, the performance of the algorithm is not degraded. Furthermore, the varying window size in the two detection stages provides more efficient results in terms of low false alarm rate and miss detection rate. The simple structure of the algorithm to detect impulse noise makes it useful for various applications like satellite imaging, remote sensing, medical imaging diagnosis and military survillance. After the efficient detection of noise, the existing filtering techniques can be used for the removal of noise.

Intensity preserving cast removal in color images using particle swarm optimization

In this paper, we present an optimal image enhancement technique for color cast images by preserving their intensity. There are methods which improves the appearance of the affected images under different cast like red, green, blue etc but up to some extent. The proposed color cast method is corrected by using transformation function based on gamma values. These optimal values of gamma are obtained through particle swarm optimization (PSO). This technique preserves the image intensity and maintains the originality of color by satisfying the modified gray world assumptions. For the performance analysis, the image distance metric criteria of CIELAB color space is used. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated by testing the proposed method on color cast images. It has been found that distance between the reference image and the corrected proposed image is negligible. The calculated value of image distance depicts that the enhanced image results of the proposed algorithm are closer to the reference images in comparison with other existing methods

Constacyclic and Linear Complementary Dual Codes Over Fq + uFq

This article discusses linear complementary dual (LCD) codes over ℜ = Fq+uFq(u2=1) where q is a power of an odd prime p. Authors come up with a new Gray map from ℜn to F2nq and define a new class of codes obtained as the gray image of constacyclic codes over .ℜ Further, we extend the study over Euclidean and Hermitian LCD codes and establish a relation between reversible cyclic codes and Euclidean LCD cyclic codes over ℜ. Finally, an application of LCD codes in multisecret sharing scheme is given

A New Hand Based Biometric Modality & An Automated Authentication System

With increased adoption of smartphones, security has become important like never before. Smartphones store confidential information and carry out sensitive financial transactions. Biometric sensors such as fingerprint scanners are built in to smartphones to cater to security concerns. However, due to limited size of smartphone, miniaturised sensors are used to capture the biometric data from the user. Other hand based biometric modalities like hand veins and finger veins need specialised thermal/IR sensors which add to the overall cost of the system. In this paper, we introduce a new hand based biometric modality called Fistprint.  Fistprints can be captured using digital camera available in any smartphone. In this work, our contributions are: i) we propose a new non-touch and non-invasive hand based biometric modality called fistprint. Fistprint contains many distinctive elements such as fist shape, fist size, fingers shape and size, knuckles, finger nails, palm crease/wrinkle lines etc. ii) Prepare fistprint DB for the first time. We collected fistprint information of twenty individuals - both males and females aged from 23 years to 45 years of age. Four images of each hand fist (total 160 images) were taken for this purpose. iii) Propose Fistprint Automatic Authentication SysTem (FAAST). iv) Implement FAAST system on Samsung Galaxy smartphone running Android and server side on a windows machine and validate the effectiveness of the proposed modality. The experimental results show the effectiveness of fistprint as a biometric with GAR of 97.5 % at 1.0% FAR

Watermarking Categorical Data : Algorithm and Robustness Analysis

The importance of watermarking digital databases has increased by leaps and bounds due to the high vulnerability of digital assets to piracy attempts when they traverse through the internet. To deter piracy, we propose a robust watermarking scheme for relational databases containing categorical data that resolves ownership issues. We propose a three-level security strategy. Firstly, the watermark is itself made secure using playfair cryptographic algorithm. Secondly, the database is securely partitioned using a primary key independent hash partitioning technique. This step virtually reorders the tuples before embedding. Thirdly, we entail a secret key based embedding process to ensure security. Linear feedback shift registers are implemented to generate pseudorandom numbers which selects different watermark bit index for each partition. The process of embedding does not produce any distortion in the database. Hence it is suitable for databases with categorical attributes containing sensitive information that cannot tolerate perturbations. Each watermark bit is embedded multiple times into different partitions. This makes the scheme highly robust against various attacks. The technique is proved by experimentally, and by theoretical analysis to be extremely robust. Experimental results show that it is 400 per cent resilient to subset addition attack, 100 per cent resilient to subset alteration attack, and 96 per cent resilient to tuple deletion attack. We prove analytically the resilience of the proposed technique against invertibility and additive attacks.Defence Science Journal, Vol. 65, No. 3, May 2015, pp.226-232, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.65.844

Behavioral biometric based personal authentication in feature phones

The usage of mobile phones has increased multifold in the recent decades mostly because of its utility in most of the aspects of daily life, such as communications, entertainment, and financial transactions. Feature phones are generally the keyboard based or lower version of touch based mobile phones, mostly targeted for efficient calling and messaging. In comparison to smart phones, feature phones have no provision of a biometrics system for the user access. The literature, have shown very less attempts in designing a biometrics system which could be most suitable to the low-cost feature phones. A biometric system utilizes the features and attributes based on the physiological or behavioral properties of the individual. In this research, we explore the usefulness of keystroke dynamics for feature phones which offers an efficient and versatile biometric framework. In our research, we have suggested an approach to incorporate the user’s typing patterns to enhance the security in the feature phone. We have applied k-nearest neighbors (k-NN) with fuzzy logic and achieved the equal error rate (EER) 1.88% to get the better accuracy. The experiments are performed with 25 users on Samsung On7 Pro C3590. On comparison, our proposed technique is competitive with almost all the other techniques available in the literature

Constacyclic codes of length 4ps4p^s over the Galois ring GR(pa,m)GR(p^a,m)

For prime $p$, $GR(p^a,m)$ represents the Galois ring of order $p^{am}$ and characterise $p$, where $a$ is any positive integer. In this article, we study the Type (1) $\lambda$-constacyclic codes of length $4p^s$ over the ring $GR(p^a,m)$, where $\lambda=\xi_0+p\xi_1+p^2z$, $\xi_0,\xi_1\in T(p,m)$ are nonzero elements and $z\in GR(p^a,m)$. In first case, when $\lambda$ is a square, we show that any ideal of $\mathcal{R}_p(a,m,\lambda)=\frac{GR(p^a,m)[x]}{\langle x^{4p^s}-\lambda\rangle}$ is the direct sum of the ideals of $\frac{GR(p^a,m)[x]}{\langle x^{2p^s}-\delta\rangle}$ and $\frac{GR(p^a,m)[x]}{\langle x^{2p^s}+\delta\rangle}$. In second, when $\lambda$ is not a square, we show that $\mathcal{R}_p(a,m,\lambda)$ is a chain ring whose ideals are $\langle (x^4-\alpha)^i\rangle\subseteq \mathcal{R}_p(a,m,\lambda)$, for $0\leq i\leq ap^s$ where $\alpha^{p^s}=\xi_0$. Also, we prove the dual of the above code is $\langle (x^4-\alpha^{-1})^{ap^s-i}\rangle\subseteq \mathcal{R}_p(a,m,\lambda^{-1})$ and present the necessary and sufficient condition for these codes to be self-orthogonal and self-dual, respectively. Moreover, the Rosenbloom-Tsfasman (RT) distance, Hamming distance and weight distribution of Type (1) $\lambda$-constacyclic codes of length $4p^s$ are obtained when $\lambda$ is not a square.Comment: This article has 18 pages and ready to submit in a journa

Comparative study of abdominal hysterectomy and vaginal hysterectomy in non-descent cases a prospective study

Background: In the present times, the emphasis on minimally invasive surgery has lead to a resurgence of interest and importance of VH for non-prolapsed indications i.e. non-decent vaginal hysterectomy (NDVH) as the scar less hysterectomy. It has several benefits over abdominal hysterectomy in terms of cosmetic advantages, lesser post-operative morbidity and faster recovery. The objectives of the study was to compare and assess various factors like operative duration of surgery, intra operative blood loss, intra operative and post-operative complications, post-operative analgesia requirement, post-operative ambulation and duration of post-operative hospital stay and to put forward best route of hysterectomy.Methods: Hundred cases fulfilling, the selection criteria were included in the study. Patients were randomly divided in two groups-NDVH (non-decent vaginal hysterectomy) and abdominal hysterectomy.Results: Operative time, intra operative blood loss and post-operative morbidity was less in NDVH groups.Conclusions: Non-decent vaginal hysterectomy is a better alternative to abdominal hysterectomy in cases with benign pathology of the uterus, uterine size <14 weeks, uterus with good mobility and adequate vaginal access