Research On Theodolite-camera Videometrics

Large-scale motion measurement mainly involves the measurement of trajectory and attitude of the moving targets whose moving range is large such as rocket, missile and airplane, there is a great demand for large-scale motion measurement in aviation, aerospace and weapon development. Large structural deformation measurement mainly involves the measurement of large structure's deformation such as bridge, wind turbine blade and airship, there is a great demand for large structural deformation measurement in construction engineering, mechanical manufacturing and quality monitoring.Due to the large-scale characteristic of the target, large-scale motion measurement requires a measuring space large enough to cover the whole motion range of the target, and real-time tracking of the target. Due to the large structure and the purpose of deformation measurement, large structural deformation measurement requires measuring space large enough to cover the whole measuring object, and capable to measure dense targets. Due to the strict requirement, large-scale motion measurement and large structural deformation measurement have always been the technical difficulties. The existed 3D measuring techniques have already been applied to respective domains, but there is no such a technique completely qualified for large-scale motion measurement and large structural deformation measurement.This paper combines the equipments such as theodolite and total station which is commonly used in engineering survey with the non-metric camera which is commonly used in videometrics to compose a new videometrics system named theodolite-camera videometrics system. It uses 2D rotation platform to drive the camera point at arbitrary area, then uses the real-time azimuth and angle of elevation to calculate the real-time extrinsic parameters of camera, in this way, non-fixed field of view can be achieved by theodolite-camera videometrics system, and it is free of field control points. Theodolite-camera videometrics has both the advantages of engineering survey and the videometrics, and is completely qualified for large-scale motion measurement and large structural deformation measurement.This paper designed three different ways to compose the theodolite-camera videometrics system, one is based on the total station, one is based on the theodolite, and the last one is based on common 2D rotation platform. This paper is mainly about the calibration techniques with respect to different kind of theodolite-camera, and conducted plenty of simulations to proves the correctness and effectiveness of the calibration techniques. In the end of the paper, accuracy experiment is introduced, and the result also proves the correctness and effectiveness of the theodolite-camera videometrics.The main work of this paper includes: 1) Designed three different ways to compose theodolite-camera, one is based on total station, and one is based on theodolite, the last one is based on common 2D rotation platform.2) Analysed and constructed a general imaging model of all kinds of theodolite-camera.3) Focused on the calibration techniques with respect to different kinds of theodolite-camera, and conducted plenty of simulations, the results prove the correctness and effectiveness of theodolite-camera videometrics.4) Considering the coupling effect of camera parameters, proposed a stepwise camera parameter calibration method to decouple camera parameters.5) Designed and built up the theodolite-camera videometrics system, and proved its correctness and effectiveness through accuracy experiment.