Horizontal Geolocation of Short-Duration Ground Events from an Aircraft

Alan G. Evans, John B. Wedding, Bruce R. Hermann, James P. Cunningham, Udayan V. Bhapkar, Andrew W. Sutter, Christopher S. Law and John P. Dugan

Abstract:	A method is presented for the airborne geolocation of surface, transient events for which height is assumed to be known independently (through a digital elevation map, for example). The technique uses a single tactical image from a digital or video camera taken from an aircraft, measurements from an inertial measurement unit (IMU) fixed to the camera, and measurements from a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver on the aircraft. Timetagged images are recorded from the aircraft flying in airspace adjacent to the imaged area. The corresponding camera position and attitude are obtained from Kalman filter integration of very accurate, long-baseline, kinematic GPS position solutions and IMU data. Geolocation of the imaged event in the World Geodetic System (WGS-84) reference frame is obtained by geometry. The potential accuracy of the method is demonstrated using Airborne Remote Optical Spotlight System (AROSS) imagery to target stationary and moving ground targets deployed at Camp Pendleton, CA, during Kernel Blitz 01 training exercises. Potential areas of military application include ship and harbor defense and artillery testing and evaluation.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2002) September 24 - 27, 2002 Oregon Convention Center Portland, OR
Pages:	2466 - 2470
Cite this article:	Evans, Alan G., Wedding, John B., Hermann, Bruce R., Cunningham, James P., Bhapkar, Udayan V., Sutter, Andrew W., Law, Christopher S., Dugan, John P., "Horizontal Geolocation of Short-Duration Ground Events from an Aircraft," Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2002), Portland, OR, September 2002, pp. 2466-2470.
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