New Potential and Applications of ADC

Joint development work by DLR and LH Systems has produced a new camera concept called Airborne Digital Sensor (ADS) which is using forward-, nadir- and backward-looking linear arrays on the focal plane. The camera system provides panchromatic and stereo information using three CCD lines and up to five more lines for multispectral imagery including two NIR channels. Each CCD array for panchromatic measurements has 24000 elements, resulting in a field of view of 64 degrees (across track FOV) by using a focal length of 62.5 mm. The sensitivity covers a dynamic range of 12 bit with a recording interval time of 1.2 ms per line. The performance of the camera allows a 3-dimensional and multispectral image with a ground sample distance of 25 cm for an area of 300 square miles within a flight time shorter than one hour.