Sensor fusion method for horizon detection from an aircraft in low visibility conditions

Abstract

The approach and landing of an aircraft under low visibility has been a subject of great interest in recent years. Although much advanced equipment has been designed and used on airplanes to improve the safety threshold in manipulating it, low visibility has remained the potential threat of causing controlled flight into terrain and runway intrusion. Besides, low visibility is also the main cause for flight delay, which reduces the efficiency of transportation systems. Clear landmarks on the ground will significantly improve pilots' spatial awareness under low visibility conditions, and among all landmarks, horizon position is the key one to count on for successfully controlling an aircraft during landing. The purpose of this paper is to design a horizon detection method based on a multisensor fusion strategy suitable for poor visibility conditions. With the fusion approach, pilots are able to recover/reconstruct the horizon under low visibility conditions. Analysis of experimental results and comparisons with reported methods are furnished at the end of this paper. © 2013 IEEE.