Multipurpose Use of GPS on a Flying Remote Sensing Laboratory

S. Tauriainen, J. Pihlflyckt, P. Ahola, M. Hallikainen

Abstract:	Airborne remote sensing has been carried out by HUT (Helsinki University of Technology) Laboratory of Space Technology for already a decade. Different plat-forms have been used for the purpose including fixed wing aircraft and helicopters. During these operations, several demands requiring positioning were identified: a) geocoding of scientific data, b) synchronisation of multisensor data, c) identification of platform motion and d) navigation aid to accurately guide the aircraft to preselected targets. The ultimate objective is to simul-taneously fly over the targets as ground truth samples are taken such that the instrument's footprint will coin-cide with the samples as precisely as possible and that the actual track of the footprint can be geolocated within the size of the one resolution unit. This paper describes the GPS based motion sensor system installed onboard the HUT Laboratory of Space Technology operated Short SC-7 Skyvan remote sensing aircraft. The system consists of two differen-tially corrected GPS receivers for positioning and time synchronisation, one multiple antenna receiver for atti-tude determination and a commercial backup navigation receiver. The three main units are connected to a LAN (Local Area Network) for time synchronisation and data transfer. In addition to platform motion recording and timing, the system also provides graphical navigation information both in the cockpit and the cabin. The presented system provides sufficient accuracy for the current relatively coarse positioning needs. It has, however turned out to be a quite complex system be-cause of the large number of instruments requiring posi-tioning and synchronisation. Also the requirement to provide positioning data for short term installed "guest" instruments has increased the system complexity.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 11th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1998) September 15 - 18, 1998 Nashville, TN
Pages:	1223 - 1227
Cite this article:	Tauriainen, S., Pihlflyckt, J., Ahola, P., Hallikainen, M., "Multipurpose Use of GPS on a Flying Remote Sensing Laboratory," Proceedings of the 11th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1998), Nashville, TN, September 1998, pp. 1223-1227.
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