Gimbaled, high resolution, city-level, thermal Infrared mapping from an Airship platform

A pilot effort adapting a gimbaled Long-Wavelength InfraRed (LWIR) imaging system prototype to the U.S. Navy MZ-3A Airship for high resolution thermal mapping of Baltimore, Maryland, has been performed. Using gimbaled step-staring imaging technologies, the swath-width of a small format, 320 by 256 pixel, 30μm pitch, Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector (QWIP) camera utilizing a 50mm lens has been effectively tripled. QWIP data collected from an airship platform resulted in a 60cm Ground Sample Distance (GSD) high quality LWIR thermal image with a 500m swath-width. The aerial LWIR images collected by the gimbaled system are geospatially accurate and rapidly deliverable for GIS mapping applications.