Measurement of aircraft attitude angles based on vanishing point theory

In order to find a better solution for the current problem of accurate measurement of the attitude angles parameters in the flight landing test, a new method using parallel lines acquired from the images of the runway surface obtained by airborne camera during landing to calculate the aircraft attitude angles is proposed based on vanishing point theory. The functional relationship between vanish point and orientation angle elements is discussed, and the models of calculating the attitude angles parameters based on vanishing point geometry and line geometric constrains are presented. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is feasible in practice, and can obtain accurate and reliable measurement of aircraft attitude angles in landing.