AIRBORNE INERTIAL SURVEYING USING LASER TRACKING AND PROFILING TECHNIQUES.

The U. S. Geological Survey through a contract with the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory has developed the Aerial Profiling of Terrain System. This is an airborne inertial surveying system designed to use a laser tracker to provide position and velocity updates, and a laser profiler to measure terrain elevations. The performance characteristics of the system are discussed with emphasis placed on the performance of the laser devices. The results of testing the system are summarized for both performance evaluation and applications.