Operation of the Ultracamd Together with Ccns4/aerocontrol – First Experiences and Results

Digital aerial cameras are ready to become the predominant sensor for photogrammetric image acquisition. One among a few others is the ULTRACAMD large format digital aerial camera of Vexcel Imaging, which was introduced in May 2003. Besides the optical and electrical properties of an aerial camera system, the environment for tasks like the mission planning, aircraft guidance, sensor management and the precise determination of position and angles play an important role for the successful operation of an aerial sensor. The CCNS4 guidance and sensor management system together with the GPS/IMU option AEROcontrol of IGI has been successfully used for these tasks with different aerial sensors like analog aerial cameras, LIDAR systems and SAR for many years. The ULTRACAMD of Vexcel Imaging is the first large format digital camera that is integrated with the CCNS4/AEROcontrol. We present the status of the integration and the impact on the photogrammetric workflow as well as the roadmap of the ongoing development. Based on the technical specifications of both, sensor and guidance/management system, we show a variety of possible applications where the benefit of the joint use is obvious.