Low Altitude Road Following Constraints Using Strap-down EO Cameras on Miniature Air Vehicles

Miniature air vehicles (MAVs) are particularly well suited for short distance, over the horizon, low altitude surveillance and reconnaissance tasks. In this paper we focus on aerial surveillance of borders and roads, where a strap- down EO camera is used in-the-loop to track a border or road pathway. We assume that quality tracking requires that the pathway always remains in the footprint of the camera. The objective of this paper is to explore roll angle and altitude above ground level constraints imposed on a bank-to-turn MAV due to the requirement to keep the pathway in the footprint of the strap-down camera. We derive the required altitude to maintain the pathway in the footprint of the camera and the associated bank angle constraints. The effectiveness of the result is explored using a high fidelity simulator.