Construction of Non-metric Camera Calibration Station for Use in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's)

In recent years, use of non-metric imaging sensors is becoming increasingly common in unmanned vehicles. This can be considered as an alternative to terrestrial mapping. Due to the limitations such as dimension, system weight, and the nature of UAV platform, it is not possible to use high volume and heavy metric sensors. Consequently, most sensors used in UAV platforms are light weight non-metric cameras. Determining the values of the internal parameters of the sensor is important in monitoring the variations of these sensors and improving the triangulation results of these images. Therefore, laboratory geometric calibration for these sensors under similar operating conditions produces better results in later stages. Our station is capable of performing calibration observations and also the calculations of a wide range of non-metric cameras and is currently serving in related organizations with ability to evaluate the accuracy of calibration results.