Performance of a near real-time airborne mapping platform for disaster monitoring

This paper presents an airborne acquisition platform which provides high flexibility with respect to data acquisition and data processing. Applications being typically envisaged are mapping of disasters which often require near real-time image processing. The acquisition platform consists of a digital 19 megapixel RGB camera, a thermal camera, a GPS receiver and an IMU (Inertial Measuring Unit) to determine the parameters of the exterior orientation, as well as a PC for data storage, camera control and data pre-processing. Via a broadband line-of-sight communication module the acquired data can be directly sent to a mobile or fixed ground station. In the ground segment first of all ortho-rectified images are computed using direct geocoding algorithms. Based upon these products, radiometrically calibrated image mosaics may be optionally generated. The ground segment further comprises a visualisation tool for the image data as well as an intelligent combination with map information in a geographic information system (GIS). In this paper the focus is put on the geometric and radiometric calibration aspects of this system and the analysis of the accuracy which can be expected. Examples of different disaster scenarios demonstrate the 2D/3D mapping potential of this platform.