A New Method of Trajectory Accurate Measurement by Single Photoelectric Theodolite

Abstract

Photoelectric theodolite is an important equipment to realize the measurement of aircraft motion trajectory in flight test. A single photoelectric theodolite with laser ranging equipment is usually used for tracking measurement. However, many factors may lead to abnormal or unavailable of laser ranging information in flight test, therefore, an accurate single station target trajectory measurement method based on eccentricity constraint is proposed. By installing the midline monitoring equipment in the aircraft taxiing datum line, the aircraft glide monitoring video is obtained, and the aircraft eccentricity is obtained through image analysis, which provides constraints for the single station positioning of photoelectric theodolite, so as to realize the accurate measurement of aircraft trajectory. The experimental results show that the method is simple, accurate and reliable. When the eccentricity accuracy is better than 5cm, the heading accuracy of single station measurement is better than 0.2m, and the elevation accuracy is better than 3cm, which can well meet the requirements of flight test.