The present disclosure is directed to a virtual pan/tilt camera system and
method for use with vehicles, and particularly ground vehicles (MGVs).
The disclosure utilizes autonomous navigation systems (ANSs) used with
pan/tilt cameras, but eliminates the pan/tilt cameras substituting a
plurality of video cameras. Each video camera is mounted in a fixed
orientation on the vehicle and covers a selected angular range of lateral
view. Commands from the ANS are mapped to selected addresses where the
video data from the video cameras are stored, and appropriately
transformed data from the selected addresses are input to the ANS.
Computers and software in the MGV receive video data from the cameras and
stitch the imagery together into a single panoramic view. Video data from
cameras with overlapping fields of view are used to simulate the view of
stereo cameras.