Synchronised data acquisition for sensor data fusion in airborne surveying

An existing facility for data acquisition in aerial surveys is presented. It contains a laser radar, an infrared camera and a video camera. The system supports synchronisation of sensor data, even when the sensor does not inherently offer that feature. This allows data from different sensors to be merged and processed together. The necessary temporal referencing is achieved by specialised hardware implemented in a Field Programmable Gate Array, which also serves to acquire data from the IR camera. The usefulness of FPGAs for this purpose is demonstrated. The possibilities FPGAs offer are shown up, and future extensions of the system are presented.