Bundle block adjustment of weakly connected aerial imagery

In aerial photogrammetry of island and reef areas, traditional aerial triangulation cannot be performed because many images in the block are partially or even completely covered by water, and thus there are not enough tie points among adjacent images. To solve this problem, an effective algorithm of position and orientation system (POS) integrated bundle block adjustment is proposed. The exterior orientation parameters of each image are modeled as functions of corresponding POS observations and their estimated systematic errors. A POS integrated bundle adjustment model is designed with the purpose of effectively eliminating the systematic errors of inertial measurement unit observations. Experimental results of three sets of island aerial images show that the proposed approach can compensate for the systematic errors of POS observations effectively. The topographic mapping requirements of hilly terrain at 1:2 000 scale can be fulfilled, provided that at least one ground control point is used in the bundle adjustment.