ABSTRACT:During disaster and emergency situations, 3D geospatial data can provide essential information for decision support systems. The utilization of geospatial data using digital surface models as a basic reference is mandatory to provide accurate quick emergency response in so called rapid mapping activities. The recipe between accuracy requirements and time restriction is considered critical in this situations. UAVs as alternative platforms for 3D point cloud acquisition offer potentials because of their flexibility and practicability combined with low cost implementations. Moreover, the high resolution data collected from UAV platforms have the capabilities to provide a quick overview of the disaster area. The target of this paper is to experiment and to evaluate a low-cost system for generation of point clouds using imagery collected from a low altitude small autonomous UAV equipped with customized single frequency RTK module. The customized multi-rotor platform is used in this study. Moreover, electronic hardware is used to simplify user interaction with the UAV as RTK-GPS/Camera synchronization, and beside the synchronization, lever arm calibration is done. The platform is equipped with a Sony NEX-5N, 16.1-megapixel camera as imaging sensor. The lens attached to camera is ZEISS optics, prime lens with F1.8 maximum aperture and 24 mm focal length to deliver outstanding images. All necessary calibrations are performed and flight is implemented over the area of interest at flight height of 120 m above the ground level resulted in 2.38 cm GSD. Earlier to image acquisition, 12 signalized GCPs and 20 check points were distributed in the study area and measured with dualfrequency GPS via RTK technique with horizontal accuracy of 1.5 and vertical accuracy of 2.3 . results of direct georeferencing are compared to these points and experimental results show that decimeter accuracy level for 3D points cloud with proposed system is achievable, that is suitable for 3D rapid mapping applications.

ABSTRACT:There is an increasingly large number of applications for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from monitoring, mapping and target geolocation. However, most of commercial UAVs are equipped with low-cost navigation sensors such as C/A code GPS and a lowcost IMU on board, allowing a positioning accuracy of 5 to 10 meters. This low accuracy cannot be used in applications that require high precision data on cm-level. This paper presents a precise process for geolocation of ground targets based on thermal video imagery acquired by small UAV equipped with RTK GPS. The geolocation data is filtered using an extended Kalman filter, which provides a smoothed estimate of target location and target velocity. The accurate geo-locating of targets during image acquisition is conducted via traditional photogrammetric bundle adjustment equations using accurate exterior parameters achieved by on board IMU and RTK GPS sensors, Kalman filtering and interior orientation parameters of thermal camera from pre-flight laboratory calibration process. The results of this study compared with code-based ordinary GPS, indicate that RTK observation with proposed method shows more than 10 times improvement of accuracy in target geolocation.