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DEVELOPMENT OF A MONITORING SYSTEM INTEGRATED AIRBORNE VIDEOGRAPHY AND GPS 
Masumi Mizukami, Yoshimasa Moriyama, Nobuyuki Mizutani, Kouji Satou 
Asia Air Survey Co.,Ltd. 
13-16 Tamura-cho, Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa-ken, 243, JAPAN 
KEYWORDS: Monitoring, Navigation, GPS, Systems, Video 
ABSTRACT 
In recent years, airborne videography is widely used for monitoring of the environment and natural resources, such as 
rivers, forests, ocean, and so on. Although airborne videography has a low resolution than aerial photographs, it can 
effectively reduce the cost of continuous monitoring of a wide area. Furthermore video images can easily be 
processed with a personal computer. This paper introduces an airborne video system for monitoring of ocean 
environment. 
This system consists of two sub-systems. The one is a data collection system that is composed of a video camera, a 
Global Positioning System(GPS) and a personal computer. This sub-system records information of the environment by 
video images and their corresponding location data. A GPS system is used for calculating location data and navigating 
the airplane to the destination of monitoring sites. The other is a data management system. This sub-system retrieves 
images from video tapes, and draw up reports on ocean environment. Both sub-systems run on a personal computer 
with Microsoft Windows 3.1. This system can also be used for management and planning of road environment, marine 
resources, forest resources and for prevention of disasters. 
1. INTRODUCTION kinds of window systems, many graphics processing 
libraries have become available. For example, two 
It requires difficult time and labor work to manually windows can be opened on the display for 
monitor environment of wide and long areas such as simultaneous arranging of both a base-map and a 
ocean. Our previous experiences have shown that this video image. 
monitoring method is not cost-effective and is not By making use of the technologies mentioned above, 
accurate on locations. A more efficient method of we have developed an airborne video system for 
environmental monitoring is to make use of aerial monitoring of ocean environment. Environment 
photographs which are used in interpretation analytic monitoring data can be efficiently analyzed by using 
work. In recent years, video technology for public this system. And also it can be used for spatial 
welfare and broadcast job has made rapid progress information retrieval and image database construction 
and has been greatly improved. As a result, this for GIS or LIS. The configuration and the major 
technology is being used in many fields. It is functions of this system are discussed in the following 
considered possible to apply airborne videography to sections. 
monitoring work by the following factors. 
3) Quality of a video camera and a VTR is getting 2. THE VIDEO DATA COLLECTION SYSTEM 
higher and higher. 
b) Cost of a video camera and a VTR is getting lower When the video data ,which is collected by an airplane 
and lower. for the environment and natural resources monitoring, 
c) Development of a CCD and a high-speed shutter. is analyzed, it is very important to acquire the location 
d) Development of detection devices for various information of object points. In the case of ocean and 
wavelength bands. snow mountains, this process becomes even more 
difficult. To solve this problem, we have developed a 
The location information of video signals can be easily video data collection system. The major features of this 
calculated as digital information at real time by a system are as follows: 
navigation system with a GPS. At the same time, the 
data processing technology has started to shift from a) Acquisition of the location information at real time 
analog to digital. Personal computers are getting b) Synchronization of the video images and their 
Cheaper in price, more powerful in data processing, corresponding location data 
and easier in operation and maintenance. As a result, c) Precise navigation of the airplane to the destinations 
multi-media (digital) technology has made significant for data collection 
Progress, which makes it possible to process video d) Specification of necessary location for the video 
Images easily even in a personal computer images taken during the flight 
environment. In particular, with the popularization of all 
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International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B7. Vienna 1996