scholarly journals Unmanned Aerial System Imagery, Land Data and User Needs: A Socio-Technical Assessment in Rwanda

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1035 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Stöcker ◽  
Serene Ho ◽  
Placide Nkerabigwi ◽  
Cornelia Schmidt ◽  
Mila Koeva ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Acquisition ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Institutional Environment ◽  
Social Study ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Quality Of Data ◽  
Priority List ◽  
Aerial Systems

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are emerging as a tool for alternative land tenure data acquisition. Even though UAS appear to represent a promising technology, it remains unclear to what extent they match the needs of communities and governments in the land sector. This paper responds to this question by undertaking a socio-technical study in Rwanda, aiming to determine the match between stakeholders’ needs and the characteristics of the UAS data acquisition workflow and its final products as valuable spatial data for land administration and spatial planning. A needs assessment enabled the expression of a range of land information needs across multiple levels and stakeholder sectors. Next to the social study, three different UAS were flown to test not only the quality of data but the possibilities of the use of this technology within the current institutional environment. A priority list of needs for cadastral and non-cadastral information as well as insights into operational challenges and data quality measures of UAS-based data products are presented. It can be concluded that UAS can have a significant contribution to match most of the prioritized needs in Rwanda. However, the results also reveal that structural and capacity conditions currently undermine this potential.

scholarly journals Long‐duration fully autonomous operation of rotorcraft unmanned aerial systems for remote‐sensing data acquisition

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danylo Malyuta ◽  
Christian Brommer ◽  
Daniel Hentzen ◽  
Thomas Stastny ◽  
Roland Siegwart ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Data Acquisition ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Sensing Data ◽  
Autonomous Operation ◽  
Long Duration ◽  
Aerial Systems

scholarly journals UAS for Wetland Mapping and Hydrological Modeling

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (17) ◽  
pp. 1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justyna Jeziorska
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Data ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
High Spatial Resolution ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Regulatory Environment ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Wetland Mapping ◽  
Monitoring Strategies ◽  
Sensing Technology ◽  
Aerial Systems

The miniaturization and affordable production of integrated microelectronics have improved in recent years, making unmanned aerial systems (UAS) accessible to consumers and igniting their interest. Researchers have proposed UAS-based solutions for almost any conceivable problem, but the greatest impact will likely be in applications that exploit the unique advantages of the technology: work in dangerous or difficult-to-access areas, high spatial resolution and/or frequent measurements of environmental phenomena, and deployment of novel sensing technology over small to moderate spatial scales. Examples of such applications may be the identification of wetland areas and use of high-resolution spatial data for hydrological modeling. However, because of the large—and growing—assortment of aircraft and sensors available on the market, an evolving regulatory environment, and limited practical guidance or examples of wetland mapping with UAS, it has been difficult to confidently devise or recommend UAS-based monitoring strategies for these applications. This paper provides a comprehensive review of UAS hardware, software, regulations, scientific applications, and data collection/post-processing procedures that are relevant for wetland monitoring and hydrological modeling.

scholarly journals Mapping Cultural Heritage in Coastal Areas with UAS: The Case Study of Lesvos Island

Heritage ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1404-1422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Apostolos Papakonstantinou ◽  
Dimitris Kavroudakis ◽  
Yannis Kourtzellis ◽  
Michail Chtenellis ◽  
Vasilis Kopsachilis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Data Acquisition ◽  
Coastal Zone ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Coastal Zones ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
Additional Tool ◽  
Heritage Sites

Dynamic processes in coastal zones and human activities in the coastal environment produce pressure on cultural heritage, especially in touristic places. Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are used as an additional tool for monitoring cultural heritage sites in sensitive coastal areas. UASs provide low-cost accurate spatial data and high-resolution imagery products in various spatial and temporal scales. The use of UAS for mapping cultural heritage sites in the coastal zone is of increasing interest among scientists and archaeologists in terms of monitoring, documentation, mapping, and restoration. This study outlines the integration of UAS data acquisition and structure from motion (SfM) pipeline for the visualization of selected cultural heritage areas (ancient harbors) in the coastal zone. The UAS-SfM methodology produces very detailed orthophoto maps for mapping and detecting cultural heritage sites. Additionally, a metadata cataloging system has been developed in order to facilitate online searching operations for all products of the data acquisition, SfM pipeline, and cartographic processes. For this reason, a specific metadata profile was implemented, based on the European INSPIRE framework. As a result, datasets reusability and catalogs interoperability are promoted.

scholarly journals Quality Assessment of Photogrammetric Methods—A Workflow for Reproducible UAS Orthomosaics

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 3831
Author(s):  
Marvin Ludwig ◽  
Christian M. Runge ◽  
Nicolas Friess ◽  
Tiziana L. Koch ◽  
Sebastian Richter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Optical Sensors ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Forest Canopy ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Temporal Analysis ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Very High Spatial Resolution ◽  
Multi Temporal ◽  
Aerial Systems

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are cost-effective, flexible and offer a wide range of applications. If equipped with optical sensors, orthophotos with very high spatial resolution can be retrieved using photogrammetric processing. The use of these images in multi-temporal analysis and the combination with spatial data imposes high demands on their spatial accuracy. This georeferencing accuracy of UAS orthomosaics is generally expressed as the checkpoint error. However, the checkpoint error alone gives no information about the reproducibility of the photogrammetrical compilation of orthomosaics. This study optimizes the geolocation of UAS orthomosaics time series and evaluates their reproducibility. A correlation analysis of repeatedly computed orthomosaics with identical parameters revealed a reproducibility of 99% in a grassland and 75% in a forest area. Between time steps, the corresponding positional errors of digitized objects lie between 0.07 m in the grassland and 0.3 m in the forest canopy. The novel methods were integrated into a processing workflow to enhance the traceability and increase the quality of UAS remote sensing.

Unmanned aerial vehicles can accurately, reliably, and economically compete with terrestrial mapping methods

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orrin Thomas ◽  
Christian Stallings ◽  
Benjamin Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Structure From Motion ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Mean Squared Error ◽  
Laser Scanner ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Squared Error ◽  
Similar Accuracy ◽  
Aerial Systems

Structure from motion (SfM) and imagery-derived point clouds (IDPC) are excellent tools for collecting spatial data. However, reported accuracies from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) commonly fall short of their theoretical potential. The research presented here, using a DJI Inspire 2 with post-processed kinematic direct geopositioning, demonstrates that UAS mapping can be consistently accurate enough for use in place of, or in concert with, terrestrial methods (2 cm vertical root mean squared error). We further demonstrate that features that are missing or distorted in IDPC (e.g., roof edges, break lines, and above-ground utilities) can be collected from UAS-imagery stereo models with similar accuracy. Accuracy in the experiments was verified by comparison to data from a total station and terrestrial laser scanner (TLS). Use of the recommended hardware and stereo compilation reduced mapping costs by 40%–75% on three test projects.

LIGHTER-THAN-AIR (LTA) UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEM (UAS) CARRIER CONCEPT FOR SURVAILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1255
Author(s):  
Ahmad Salahuddin Mohd Harithuddin ◽  
Mohd Fazri Sedan ◽  
Syaril Azrad Md Ali ◽  
Shattri Mansor ◽  
Hamid Reza Jifroudi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Disaster Management ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Unmanned Aerial System ◽  
Border Control ◽  
Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Operational Safety ◽  
In Situ Methods ◽  
Aerial Systems

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) has many advantages in the fields of SURVAILLANCE and disaster management compared to space-borne observation, manned missions and in situ methods. The reasons include cost effectiveness, operational safety, and mission efficiency. This has in turn underlined the importance of UAS technology and highlighted a growing need in a more robust and efficient unmanned aerial vehicles to serve specific needs in SURVAILLANCE and disaster management. This paper first gives an overview on the framework for SURVAILLANCE particularly in applications of border control and disaster management and lists several phases of SURVAILLANCE and service descriptions. Based on this overview and SURVAILLANCE phases descriptions, we show the areas and services in which UAS can have significant advantage over traditional methods.

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