History
SH-NAV Package
APL-NAV
was originally designed in early 1997, at the
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), for an aerial ocean
photography project - SeaHawk (SH). It was intended to provide situational
awareness for operators of an airborne gimbaled camera system, using GPS data
from an Applanix POS/AV inertial
navigation unit. SH-NAV soon grew to also provide flight planning and real-time
tracking for the cameras. The flight geometries desired for the project
(one example: high altitude hovering to within a few tens of yards with no visual
references) exceeded the capabilities of available cockpit instruments.
It was therfore necessary to add software support for virtual instruments for
the pilots, driven by our inertial GPS.
SH-NAV Field
Record - Three years of field use
- Approximately
300 flight hours
- Two major field tests (Two
weeks each)
- Numerous smaller tests
See
Photos RTV-NAV Package The RTV adaptation
initially consisted of flight planning, navigation, and pilot display tools.
A real-time coverage map was also soon included. This new adaptation was
vital for proposed large area collects, because it allowed us to see in real time
if we left any holes or gaps in our coverage from strip to strip. We could
then fill the gaps almost immediately, rather than having to make additional flights
after the data was processed on the ground. The LIDAR system (Optech
ALTM 1210) shipped with a small hand-held controller, running simple DOS-based
controller software. This was replaced with enhanced GUI functionality in
RTV-NAV. A functional system was installed in an Army Dash-7, and used with
success in multiple field tests. RTV-NAV Field
Record - One year of field use
- Approximately
75 flight hours
- One major field test (135 square
kilometers)
- Several smaller collects (5-50
square kilometers)
See Photos © 2000 The Johns Hopkins University. |
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