Event-driven dynamic trajectories reconstruction and measurement of mechanical parameters for fragments
2026-06-08 • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
AI summaryⓘ
The authors address the problem of measuring fast, dense warhead fragments that are hard to track because of bright flashes and smoke during explosions. They use special event cameras that capture changes in light very quickly and handle challenging lighting conditions. By combining three cameras and several math rules to match points between views, the authors reconstruct the fragments' 3D paths and calculate their speed and energy. This method helps better evaluate how damaging the fragments are and aids in designing protection against them.
event camerawarhead fragments3D trajectory reconstructionepipolar constrainttrifocal tensorhomographynonlinear optimizationmechanical parameterskinetic energyhigh-speed imaging
Authors
Haoyang Li, Banglei Guan, Muxi Zha, Yifei Bian, Minzu Liang, Yang Shang, Qifeng Yu
Abstract
During warhead detonation, high-density, high-speed, and mutually occluded fragments are generated. Their mechanical parameters (position, velocity, kinetic energy) directly determine the lethality of the warhead fragment field. However, high-intensity flash and smoke in detonation scenarios severely hinder the accurate acquisition of these mechanical parameters. To address this challenge, this paper integrates experimental mechanics approaches and presents an event-driven method for reconstructing the dynamic trajectories of fragments and measuring their mechanical parameters. As a novel brain-inspired visual sensor, event cameras offer microsecond-level temporal resolution and high dynamic range lighting change perception, overcoming the difficulty of accurately measuring high-speed targets under strong flash interference. The method constructs a multi-event-camera vision system, adopting three geometric constraints: time-correlated epipolar constraint to find potential matching event point pairs, and trifocal tensor line constraint plus local homography constraint to eliminate mismatches. A comprehensive probability model is established, with entropy weight method determining the weight of each constraint's probability to quantitatively filter mismatches. 3D trajectory reconstruction is achieved via spatial line-line intersection and nonlinear optimization. Finally, the velocity and kinetic energy of the fragments are calculated based on the reconstructed trajectory. This method provides reliable technical support for the mechanical damage evaluation of warhead fragment fields and the tactical protection design.