A Study on Terrain Profile Generation for Terrain Following

An aircraft utilizes the terrain following system to reduce the possibility of detected by enemy while implementing the missions. It is necessary to obtain the accurate terrain information of the flightpath to avoid the collision to the ground and maintain the low-altitude flight. In this paper, to obtain the terrain information of the flightpath, a passive mode profile generation algorithm which interpolates the digital terrain elevation data(DTED) is proposed. An active mode profile generation algorithm which uses the radar scan data and a hybrid mode profile algorithm which uses both DTED and radar scan data are also proposed. The passive mode profile is compared with the active mode profile and the hybrid mode profile to verify the algorithms of generating the active mode profile and hybrid mode profile. The generated profiles can be used in generating the terrain following trajectory.