Tracking technology for optoelectronic imaging platform of tethered balloon based on DGPS/INS

In this paper, a tracking method for optoelectronic imaging platform of tethered balloon based on difference global positioning system/inertial navigation system is presented in detail. The location and attitude information of optoelectronic imaging platform, the azimuth and elevation angles of camera’s line of sight are used by this method to locate the ground target at the centre point of the camera’s field of view through corresponding coordinate transformation. And then, the method makes use of the update position and attitude information to solve the theoretical point of camera’s line of sight inversely. Finally, an angle control commend will be sent to the inertially-stabilized turntable on the optoelectronic imaging platform, which will adjust its azimuth and elevation angle to make the camera’s line of sight to the ground target. A lot of experiments are conducted, and the results show that the initial ground target is always in the centre of camera’s field of view no matter how the balloon’s position and attitude change, and the new location data of ground target has little difference with the initial location data, while the difference between them is close to 0.