Translational Motion Compensation of Roll-Pitch Electro-Optical Pod to Ground Targets

The roll–pitch electro-optical pod mounted on an unmanned flight platform has a high velocity–height ratio. When observing the ground, a large image motion can occur during the exposure time of the photoelectric sensor, causing image blurring, and thereby, affecting the imaging quality. Simultaneously, a rapidly refreshed video scene results in the operator facing challenges in finding the target of interest. This in turn causes difficulties in tracking and capturing. Given the aforementioned issue, in this study, the information on inertial and electro-optical pods is used to calculate the angular velocity relative to the target motion and eliminate the adverse effects of carrier motion via the reverse angular motion of the equipment. Furthermore, limitations on compensation application and error analysis are provided. The relationship among target distance, compensation angular velocity, observation angle, and flight altitude is simulated. This is followed by a simulation analysis of the influence of inertial measurement error and frame angle error on the compensation angular velocity error. The actual hanging flight test shows that the electro-optical sight axis can point to any target area continuously and stably for a long time without considering the limited motion range of the equipment and provide clear and stable images as the output, without being affected by the translational motion of the carrier. This in turn provides significant convenience to the operator for observation and operation.