Airborne Control
Kucera has been performing airborne control surveying services since 1999 and has successfully completed hundreds of airborne control survey missions. Kucera is one of a few companies that operates multiple geodetic-grade Applanix Model 510 POS/AV airborne GPS/IMU systems and performs virtually every large and many of its smaller aerial imaging flyovers using AGPS/IMU.
For aerial photogrammetric surveys, the Applanix AGPS/IMU survey data improves the quality of, reduces the time required for, or eliminates the need for the aerotriangulation of the aerial photography. For typical large or medium scale photogrammetric projects, the aerotriangulation process, together with a reduced number of ground-based control points, is used to quality check and refine the AGPS/IMU survey results.
At the start and completion of each flight session the Applanix system receiver is initialized using the fixed baseline method by being operated in the aircraft while parked stationary and having one static station placed close to the aircraft location, providing a short baseline vector solution. Following each flight session the observation data is immediately downloaded and subject to initial processing by the flight crew to ensure sucessful data recording and coverage.
The GPS and IMU data are processed together, with the IMU data being used to fill in and adjust the GPS results as needed and the GPS data being used to minimize the effects of aircraft "drift" in the IMU measurements. The data is smoothed and corrected using both forward and backward processing with the resultant photo center coordinates and orientation angles extracted and output into the proper datum. The AGPS/IMU reduction results are thoroughly analyzed to ensure proper IMU behavior and accuracy with the data graphs also being used to ensure that the proper flying parameters are followed for each mission.