Investigation of Image Based Measurement for Aircraft Approach

Measurement of an aircraft position in the reference to the runway is crucial for proper realisation of approach phase of flight. Vision based measurement methods use shape of known objects and their images as source of data for computing demanded values. Essential equations used in the data processing derives from the geometrical dependences. Presented method makes possible to use only image of the distinctive features of the airfield for computation of the aircraft position in the relation to the runway. Proposed algorithm has been verified using data and images from an in-flight experiment. Comparison of directly measured aircraft position and position computed from image proves accuracy predicted by theoretical analysis.