Analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digitization adapter

Abstract

This invention discloses a low-latency digitization adapter for analog fiber optic UAV image and control signals, connected in series between a ground-based photoelectric converter and a digital remote controller. It includes an analog video input interface, a video decoding module, a low-latency video encoding module, a control signal processing module, a remote control signal output interface, a network communication module, and a controller. It digitizes the CVBS signal output from the ground-based photoelectric converter, performs low-latency compression using intra-frame coding, and transmits it to the digital remote controller via an IP network. Simultaneously, it reverses the transmission of SBUS control packets generated by the digital remote controller, restoring them to standard SBUS signals and sending them back to the ground-based photoelectric converter, which then sends them back to the airborne unit via its existing fiber optic channel. This invention enables the integration of existing analog fiber optic UAV onboard equipment with a digital remote controller, and reduces end-to-end latency to a significantly shorter timeframe.

Claims

1. A low-latency digital conversion adapter for analog fiber optic UAV image and control signals, comprising: An analog video input interface for receiving CVBS composite video signals from a terrestrial photoelectric converter; A video decoding module, electrically connected to the analog video input interface, is used to sample and decode the CVBS composite video signal into a digital video stream; a low-latency video encoding module, electrically connected to the video decoding module, is used to compress the digital video stream into a compressed video data stream using intra-frame coding; a control signal processing module has a remote control signal output interface, which is used to connect to the control signal input terminal of the terrestrial photoelectric converter; a network communication module is coupled to the low-latency video encoding module and the control signal processing module, the network communication module having at least one of an Ethernet interface and a Wi-Fi interface; The system also includes a controller electrically connected to the video decoding module, the low-latency video encoding module, the control signal processing module, and the network communication module. The network communication module transmits the compressed video data stream in real-time streaming packet format to a digital remote controller, and receives an SBUS control packet from the digital remote controller and transmits it to the control signal processing module. The control signal processing module restores the SBUS control packet to a standard SBUS signal and sends it to the ground-based photoelectric converter via the remote control signal output interface.

2. The analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digital conversion adapter as described in claim 1 further includes a housing, wherein the analog video input interface and the remote control signal output interface are disposed on the housing; the video decoding module, the low-latency video encoding module, the control signal processing module, the network communication module and the controller are all disposed within the housing.

3. The analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digitization adapter as described in claim 1, wherein the low-latency video encoding module uses Motion JPEG encoding for intra-frame encoding.

4. The analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digitization adapter as described in claim 1, wherein the low-latency video encoding module uses an All-I encoding method with H.264 Baseline Profile and a GOP length of 1 for intra-frame encoding.

5. The analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digital conversion adapter as described in claim 1, wherein the video decoding module further includes a deinterlacing processing unit for converting interlaced video of NTSC or PAL format into progressive video output.

6. The analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digital conversion adapter as described in claim 1, wherein the control signal processing module includes a level inverting circuit for converting the UART output of a microcontroller into a 100000bps, 8E2 inverted signal conforming to the SBUS specification.

7. The analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digital conversion adapter as described in claim 1, wherein the control signal processing module further includes a packet loss compensation mechanism that continuously outputs the most recently valid SBUS frame when no new SBUS control packet is received within a specified timeout period.

8. The analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digitization adapter as described in claim 1, wherein the network communication module transmits the compressed video data stream in RTP over UDP real-time streaming packet format and assigns QoS priority to SBUS control packets higher than that of the compressed video data stream.

9. The analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digitization adapter as described in claim 1, wherein the Wi-Fi interface of the network communication module can operate in access point mode, allowing the digital remote controller to be directly connected to the adapter.

10. The analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digitization adapter as described in claim 2, wherein a power management module is further provided within the housing, the power management module receiving a wide range of DC input from 7V to 26V.

11. The analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digitization adapter as described in claim 2, wherein a local storage module is further provided within the housing for synchronously recording the compressed video data stream.

12. The analog fiber optic UAV image and control signal low-latency digital conversion adapter as described in claim 1, wherein the controller further comprises an OSD overlay unit that overlays flight telemetry information onto the digital video stream before intra-frame encoding by the low-latency video encoding module.

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