Geo-location method for television tracker carried by projectile

An improved geo-location method for television tracker carried by projectile is presented. Depending on more than four known ground control points in a single aerial image, a kind of simple two-step method is taken to estimate the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters and position parameters of the aerial camera, and an iterative calculation is operated to get the three dimensional coordinates of ground targets by using collinearity equations and updating the digital elevation model (DEM). Compared to the common aerial geo-location method, this improved method needs no more demarcating the camera effective focal length beforehand, and the camera lens aberrations could be corrected, as would make the camera parameters estimation to be more accurate. This method solves the problem that the plane error would be influenced greatly by the elevation error in the traditional approaches. A test is carried out to examine the validity of the proposed algorithm. And a simulation example is given to test the effectiveness of the method. The results show that the geo-location method would meet the location accuracy needs of television tracker carried by projectile in precise strike and it would be a feasible and applicable means.