Data acquisition, analysis and applications of multi-sensor integration

This paper presents some key techniques for multi sensor integration system, which is applied to the intelligent transportation system industry and surveying and mapping industry, e.g. road surface condition detection, digital map making. The techniques are synchronization control of multi sensor, space time benchmark for sensor data, and multi sensor data fusion and mining. Firstly, synchronization control of multi sensor is achieved through a synchronization control system which is composed of a time synchronization controller and some synchronization sub controllers. The time synchronization controller can receive GPS time information from GPS satellites, relative distance information from distance measuring instrument and send space time information to the synchronization sub controller. The latter can work at three types of synchronization mode, i.e. active synchronization, passive synchronization and time service synchronization. Secondly, space time benchmark can be established based on GPS time and global reference coordinate system, and can be obtained through position and azimuth determining system and synchronization control system. Thirdly, there are many types of data fusion and mining, e.g. GPS/Gyro/DMI data fusion, data fusion between stereophotogrammetry and PADS, data fusion between laser scanner and PADS, and data fusion between CCD camera and laser scanner. Finally, all these solutions presented in paper have been applied to two areas, i.e. land borne intelligent road detection and measurement system and 3D measurement system based on unmanned helicopter. The former has equipped some highway engineering Co., Ltd. and has been successfully put into use. The latter is an ongoing research.