Integration of Camera Systems for Determining Altitude of Low-Flying Aircraft Above Water

Abstract

Low altitude aircraft that fly above water especially (the Russian) Ekranoplanes are finding wide applications not only as a fast and viable transportation means over various water bodies, but also as rescue vehicles for critical rescue operations. Their low-altitude flight makes it necessary for them to be equipped with an accurate altimeter which distinguishes even minute changes easily. Computer vision systems are finding applications for ranging, mapping and object recognition in various fields. Two separate systems that used the principles of ‘computer vision’—a passive stereoscopic camera system (PSCS) and an active stereoscopic camera system (ASCS) were proposed for measuring altitude in earlier papers. Both these systems are explained briefly in this paper. PSCS operates only in rough sea conditions, whereas ASCS works only in calm sea conditions. Thus, individually they cannot operate in all-sea states. This paper proposes a way to integrate the camera systems so as to determine altitude in all sea states.