An innovative procedure for calibration of strapdown electro-optical sensors onboard unmanned air vehicles.
This paper presents an innovative method for estimating the attitude of airborne electro-optical cameras with respect to the onboard autonomous navigation unit. The procedure is based on the use of attitude measurements under static conditions taken by an inertial unit and carrier-phase differential Global Positioning System to obtain accurate camera position estimates in the aircraft body reference frame, while image analysis allows line-of-sight unit vectors in the camera based reference frame to be computed. The method has been applied to the alignment of the visible and infrared cameras installed onboard the experimental aircraft of the Italian Aerospace Research Center and adopted for in-flight obstacle detection and collision avoidance. Results show an angular uncertainty on the order of 0.1° (rms).
Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, P.le Tecchio 80, 80125 Naples, Italy. g.fasano@unina.it
Giancarmine
G
Fasano
Domenico
D
Accardo
Antonio
A
Moccia
Attilio
A
Rispoli
D000054:Acceleration; D000401:Aircraft / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards*; D002138:Calibration / Q000592:standards; D040362:Geographic Information Systems / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards*; D007558:Italy; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards; D014159:Transducers / Q000592:standards*