The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. XXXVII. Part Bl. Beijing 2008 
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small regional large-scale topographic mapping task, we present 
a new concept of aerial photographic system which employs a 
three-dimensional civil unmanned surveying biplane and takes 
the accuracy requirement as the main requirement of the system 
design. Meanwhile, the photograph control, double-wing UAV 
flight characteristics, the payload manufacturing requirements 
are taken as non-dominant requirements, using a 
multidisciplinary collaborative design model to carry on the 
optimal solution to the design parameters. 
The newly developed two-wing UAV which is with a length of 
3.7 m, height 1.5 m and a wingspan of 3.5 m. The body of the 
plane uses aviation balsa skeleton, and the focus components 
use reinforced carbon fiberboard. The Airplane gross weight 40 
kg, Take-off speed is 40 km/ h, Flying speed is 50 ~ 100 km/ 
h , cruise duration is 2h, control radius is 20 km , flight altitude 
is 100 m —4 000 m, the DC—DC voltage transformation 
module provides the overall system with the standard 5 V and 
12 V voltages. As shown in figure 3. The payload is a Canon 
IDsMark-II digit camera. 
(a) Ground-pre 
flight state 
state 
Figure 3. Unmanned aerial vehicle panorama drawing 
3.2 Test Area Coverage and Flight Design 
After the integration of the system, it has been tested 
successively on such photogrammetry projects as anti 
regulation reservoir in Xixia Yuan, Guangzhou New Passenger 
Station on Wu-Guang Railway Passenger Line, Danjiangkou 
Reservoir, archaeology of Han Tomb and rural drinking-water 
projects in Huairou District, Beijing. Now we’ll take 
Guangzhou New Passenger Station for example. 
3.3 Test results 
With the flight altitude of about 118m, and the ground 
resolution of 5 cm, a total of 840 images are acquired in this 
aerial photographic task. The images are clear, with uniform 
color and no aerial loopholes. Both longitudinal overlap and 
lateral overlap are 100% qualified, the largest photograph tilt 
angle being 2°, the largest rotation angle 5°, the bending of the 
route less than 1%, and the largest aircraft height difference 3m. 
Figure 4 shows the thumbnails of the original images in the 
coverage. 
Directional points and checkpoints are totally field-controlled. 
After image distortion correction and single absolute orientation; 
the statistical results of the check point accuracy are as follows: 
Me = 0.10m , My = 0.9m , Mz = 0.15m , which basically 
meet the 1:500 scale map requirements. 
Figure 4. Index map of Guangzhou new passenger station 
4. UNMANNED AIRSHIP AERIAL 
PHOTOGRAMMETRY TEST 
4.1 Unmanned Airship and Payload 
The test was carried out between October 1 st and 6 th , 2007. 
Guangzhou New Passenger Station on Wu-Guang Railway 
Passenger Line is located between Zhongcun Village and Shek 
Pik Village of Panyu District, Guangzhou, where Wu-Guang 
Railway Passenger Line intersects with the southern extension 
of Guangzhou Metro Line 2. The photography area is between 
east longitude 1131445 - 1131635 , and north latitude 
22°58'47"-23°00'30". The actual flight area is 3.2* 3.2km 2 . 
The survey area is flat with a distribution of rural residential 
areas, nurseries, orchards and farmland. 
The mode of manual take-off and landing is selected with 
autonomous flight. As the aircraft is equipped with a parachute, 
emergencies during the flight are handled autonomously by the 
aircraft-borne controller, therefore, only one landing field is set 
near the central zone of the surveyed area. The aircraft carries 
out the real task of over-horizon autonomous flight. Four crew 
members are involved and the effective operation time lasts 
three days, including one day for route planning. 
The airship flies with the buoyancy of the helium filled in the 
ship pouch and the power provided by engine. In 1884, ever 
since the success of the world's first flight test of a practical 
airship, airship has become the most successful manned vehicle. 
As the airship is strongly affected by weather conditions such as 
winds and thunderstorms, airship was replaced by aircraft in the 
1930s. However, people have never given up the development 
and application of unmanned airships for the sake of their 
unique technological advantages. Being eligible for low- 
altitude and low-speed flight, small airships can be used as a 
unique platform for the acquisition of high-resolution remote 
sensing images. 
The unmanned airship used in this test is self designed and 
made by the Survey and Mapping Institute of Science and 
Technology of China. As is shown in Figure 4(a), the airship 
can fly autonomously and its performance is shown in table 2. 
A Canon 5D camera is used, the CCD size of which being 
4368*2912, the focus being 24mm.