A portable system for measuring the absolute geographic location of distant objects

Abstract

This contribution presents the development of a lightweight, man-portable system for measuring the absolute geographic location of distant objects. The system is built entirely from COTS (Commercial Of-The-Shelf) components that are controlled using custom software and hardware solutions. It consists of a laser rangefinder, an electronic compass and inclinometer, an optical incremental encoder, a GPS receiver, a CMOS camera, an LCOS viewfinder and an FPGA module that serves as a system controller. With the use of the FPGA, low power consumption and high processing power was achieved. The user interface comprises the viewfinder and a multidirectional button. While performing measurements, the live image of the target, sensor data and calculated coordinates are displayed in the viewfinder. The measuring system also features an SD card slot for data storage and WLAN connectivity to transfer the acquired data to a geographic information system. The contribution also presents the results of field tests used to verify the system operation and Monte Carlo simulations employed to evaluate its measuring characteristics.