AeroControl Precise Positioning System

IGI's AEROcontrol system is used to precisely determine the position and attitude of an airborne camera or other sensor at a given instant. This can be the position of the projection center and the omega, phi, kappa angles of the sensor.

Depending on GPS constellation and distance from GPS Base/Monitor Station, a positioning accuracy better than 0.1m RMS and attitude accuracy of 0.01 deg RMS is available in post-processing.

The AEROcontrol system consists of a fiberoptic gyro based Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU-Ild), a 12-channel L1/L2 Survey GPS receiver, and an airborne computer. The IMU is mounted rigidly to the sensor system.

The AEROcontrol system is controlled via the airborne computer or via IGI's Standard CCNS-4 guidance, positioning and management system for aerial survey flight missions. AEROcontrol with IGI's fibre-optic based IMU plus Standard CCNS4 form the only fully integrated guidance, management, precise positioning and attitude determination system available. The system may be installed as separate units or in a single 19" rack mount, 3U or 5U high.

The airborne computer of the AEROcontrol system is used for data recording of

  • IMU-IId raw angular and acceleration data at 64 Hz (128 Hz optional);
  • GPS raw data, positions and velocities;
  • Optionally, attitude information from Somag GSM-3000, Zeiss T-AS, or Leica PAV30 stabilized mount.

All accumulated raw data are stored on the AEROcontrol MISSION CARD for post flight processing using the AEROoffice software suite. The system records approximately 12MB (64Hz) or 18MB (128Hz) of data per hour, giving essentially unlimited mission time with gigabyte PC-Cards. The processed data can be used as is, or introduced as additional observations into aerial triangulation / block adjustment programs (e.g. MATCH-AT or BINGO).

Real-time platform calculations allow this information to be used as navigational input for IGI's Standard CCNS4. When AEROcontrol is used with a sensor mounted on the GSM-3000, the highly-accurate gyros of the inertial platform can be used to control stabilization for better leveling and angular control.

Installation kits for the inertial measurement unit (IMU) of the AEROcontrol system, including adapter plate where needed, are available for Wild/Leica RC10A and RC20/RC30, Zeiss Jena LMK, LMK-1000, and LMK2000, and Zeiss Oberkochen RMK-TOP aerial cameras, and for Vexcel UltraCam-D and other digital cameras and sensors.




AEROcontrol airborne system:

  • Inertial measurement unit (IMU-11d) with fibre-optic gyros (FOG)
  • Integrated Z-Xtreme/IGI, 12-channel L1/L2 Survey GPS receiver (Ashtech), modified for airborne operations
  • Airborne AEROcontrol computer Operation a-f vd management of the AEROcontrol system is either:
    - as a stand-alone system
    - or controlled by the Standard CCNS4 as an integrated system

DGPS system:

  • Portable GPS Base / Monitor station, e.g. from IGI (based on Ashtech Z-Xtreme) with 12 hours or more continous operating time (battery based)
  • Information from fixed GPS network, e.g. SAPOS in Germany, UK FIXED GPS NETWORK

AEROoffice software package:

  • DGPS computations by GrafNav software package (licence included, others on request)
  • Kalmann filter software for combined GPS / IMU calculation
  • Lever-arm correction
  • Boresight transformation