Video Altimeter and Obstruction Detector for an Aircraft

Video-based altimetric and obstructiondetection systems for aircraft have been partially developed. The hardware of a system of this type includes a downward-looking video camera, a video digitizer, a Global Positioning System receiver or other means of measuring the aircraft velocity relative to the ground, a gyroscopebased or other attitude-determination subsystem, and a computer running altimetric and/or obstruction-detection software.