in order to measure the movement of a vehicle , especially an aircraft , an imaging optical system 2 which is to be positioned on the vehicle is used to detect an image of the environment 4 , and an optoelectronic shift sensor 3 chip of the type comprising an inherent evaluation unit is used to measure any shift of the image from structures thereof . the shift sensor is equal or similar to the sensor used on an optical mouse . the sensor is positioned in such a way that infinite objects are focused . the measuring signal is evaluated to indicate movements and / or the position of the aircraft . the inventive system can also be used to measure distances e . g . in order to control the flight altitude . the invention further relates to methods for automatically controlling particularly a hovering flight by means of a control loop using optical flow measurement .