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dcskycam/helicopter-classification

DCSkyCam Helicopter Classification Dataset This dataset contains cropped images of helicopters and non-helicopter objects captured by the DCSkyCam - a Raspberry Pi-based webcam in Washington, DC. The images were used to train binary and multi-class helicopter classification models using transfer learning from EfficientNet. Dataset Description The DCSkyCam system used a three-stage detection pipeline: Object Detection (SSD MobileNet V3) identifies candidate… See the full description on the dataset page: https://huggingface.co/datasets/dcskycam/helicopter-classification.

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Dataset Card

DCSkyCam Helicopter Classification Dataset

This dataset contains cropped images of helicopters and non-helicopter objects captured by the DCSkyCam - a Raspberry Pi-based webcam in Washington, DC. The images were used to train binary and multi-class helicopter classification models using transfer learning from EfficientNet.

Dataset Description

The DCSkyCam system used a three-stage detection pipeline:

  1. 1.Object Detection (SSD MobileNet V3) identifies candidate objects in the sky
  2. 2.Binary Classifier determines if a candidate is a helicopter or not
  3. 3.Multi-class Classifier identifies the specific helicopter type

This dataset contains the cropped images used for stages 2 and 3.

Image Format

  • —Format: JPEG (cropped from full-frame)
  • —Typical size: Pixel sizes vary depending on MobileNet bounding box output. Most have at least 1 axis >= 100px.
  • —Total images: 8,100

Metadata Columns

ColumnDescription
file_nameImage filename (relative path within train/)
helicopter_type"helicopter" or "not_helicopter"
heli_subtypeHelicopter type code (e.g., "UH1N", "AS350") or "none" for non-helicopters

Class Distribution

Helicopter Types: 5,153 images

TypeCountTypeCount
UH1N1,920MH65717
AS350895B412451
H60451EC35126
VH3D194VH92125
S76124AW13959
UH7239EC4526
MD5214B2065
AH62V222

Non-helicopter: 2,947 images

Usage Notes

  • —The test/train/validation split is left to the user — no pre-defined splits are included.
  • —Data augmentation was applied during model training but is not reflected in this dataset. Users are free to apply their own augmentation.
  • —A small number of additional copyrighted images (<100) were used for training but are also excluded from this dataset for licensing reasons.

License

This dataset is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Citation

bibtex
@misc{dcskycam_classification_dataset,
  title = {DCSkyCam Helicopter Classification Dataset},
  author = {DCSkyCam contributors},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/dcskycam/helicopter-classification},
  license = {CC-BY-4.0}
}

Project Information

The DCSkyCam project was an AI-enabled sky monitoring system built on Raspberry Pi that automatically detected and identified helicopters using TensorFlow Lite models.

dcskycam/helicopter-classification · Team Ai