GPS for Attitude Determination and Positioning in Airborne Remote Sensing

Simon Corbett

Abstract:	GPS is playing an increasingly important role in airborne positioning. Applications range from aircraft guidance, to precision approach and landing systems, and to attitude determination. An attitude determination system for low altitude oblique photography, sponsored by the UK Ministry of Defence, and two government research councils, is currently being developed at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Applications centred on photogrammetric and remote sensing usage are being developed at the City University in London. If the position and orientation of an aircraft are known, together with the transformation parameters between the GPS positions and the perspective centre of the camera, then the position and orientation of a camera can be derived. This effectively removes the need for any ground control for photogrammetric purposes, allowing, for example, the mapping of remote or dangerous areas and deforming objects such as oil rigs or scree slopes. The paper will focus on an ambiguity function method to determine integer phase ambiguities, and thus positions. This technique is being used for the single epoch determination of the location of four GPS antennas fitted on a light aircraft and connected to independent dual frequency P-code receivers. A number of experiments have been conducted using the aircraft. These have involved static tests to look at the effects of multipathing, taxi trials to test the kinematic GPS processing techniques, and flight trials to test the full feasibility of the system.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 6th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1993) September 22 - 24, 1993 Salt Palace Convention Center Salt Lake City, UT
Pages:	789 - 796
Cite this article:	Corbett, Simon, "GPS for Attitude Determination and Positioning in Airborne Remote Sensing," Proceedings of the 6th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1993), Salt Lake City, UT, September 1993, pp. 789-796.
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