[Gdeaver]

Digital machine vision is the major field of study now. However, don't forget one of the greatest terrain following achievements - the cruise missile. The cruise missile system was developed before powerful digital electronic were available. The cruise missile used optical processing followed by some analog signal processing and filtering. the processed image wasn't digitized till the last stage. The image was optically analog filtered down to the most important data in an image. The edges. The edges of objects are all that are needed for navigation. To see why try this. Go into a dark room where you can just barely see. If the light is just right, your eye will just perceive the edges of objects in the room. You can walk around. Notice that there is no color info in your perceived image. This is basically what the cruise missile system does. optical and analog systems are very hard to develop. I understand some real break thrues were achieve and the next generation system was being developed. Then GPS came along and the project was scraped. If any of you kids are going to college and are interest in machine vision you may want to pay attention to optical processing more. The cruise missile tech is still tied up in NS but may start coming out in pieces over the next few years.