SAR to optical, optical to thermal: preparing reference imagery

SenzFusion confirms each position fix with a thermal scene check: a thermal picture of the terrain below is compared with a stored reference scene. That raises a practical question before any aircraft takes off. Where does a thermal reference of the mission area come from?

Match like with like

Image matching works best when the reference and the live picture come from the same kind of sensor. A thermal camera sees the world differently from an optical satellite image, and radar satellite imagery looks different again. Matching a live thermal frame against an optical photograph means comparing two different representations of the same ground.

The archive of available imagery, however, is mostly optical and radar. RECONN.EARTH exists to bridge that gap: it prepares reference imagery for onboard matching by converting it to the sensor type the payload actually carries.

Reference imagery, converted to your sensor.

Two conversions

RECONN.EARTH performs two conversions:

• SAR to optical — synthetic aperture radar satellite imagery is converted into an optical reference. Radar imagery can be collected through cloud and at night, which makes it a useful source when optical coverage is missing.
• Optical to thermal — optical imagery is converted into a thermal reference for thermal payloads, giving the thermal scene check something it can compare like with like.

Alongside conversion, RECONN.EARTH offers one-shot small-object detection in both reference and live imagery.

Tiled, cached, delivered before flight

A converted image is not yet a usable reference. RECONN.EARTH tiles and caches the imagery for the onboard reference store, so that it can be delivered to the vehicle before flight. On the aircraft, onboard storage holds the terrain maps, thermal reference scenes and mission configuration that the fusion pipeline matches against.

Packaging can follow the mission: references can be prepared per area or per mission, so the payload carries what the route needs.

In the ShoalOS stack, this work sits at L4 — reference and data services: reference retrieval, image conversion, tiling and the mission data store. It feeds L1, the fusion kernel, where the thermal scene check runs.

Where it runs, and what comes next

Reference imagery for defence missions is often sensitive. RECONN.EARTH can be deployed in the cloud, on-premise or fully air-gapped, so imagery stays on the operator's own infrastructure.

One piece is coming soon: a mission package that bundles the reviewed route with the terrain maps used for the radar map match, the thermal reference imagery and the payload configuration. Today, Nav Planner exports the flight plan only; packaging reference data with it, and loading it onto the vehicle, is coming soon. When it lands, each part of the package will go to the system that uses it — the route to the host autopilot, the references to payload storage.

Learn more at reconn.earth ↗ or in the Systems overview.