An Automatic Uav Mapping System for Supporting Un (United Nations) Field Operations

Abstract

Commission VI, WG VI/4 KEY WORDS: UAV, Automatic Mapping, United Nations, Field Operations ABSTRACT:The United Nations (UN) has performed field operations worldwide such as peacekeeping or rescue missions. When such an operation is needed, the UN dispatches an operation team usually with a GIS (Geographic Information System) customized to a specific operation. The base maps for the GIS are generated mostly with satellite images which may not retain a high resolution and the current situation. To build an up-to-date high resolution map, we propose a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) based automatic mapping system, which can operate in a fully automatic way from the data acquisition of sensory data to the data processing for the generation of the geospatial products such as a mosaicked orthoimage of a target area. In this study, we analyse the requirements for UN field operations, suggest a UAV mapping system with an operation scenario, and investigate the applicability of the system. With the proposed system, we can construct a tailored GIS with up-to-date and high resolution base maps for a specific operation efficiently.* Corresponding author INTRODUTIONOne of the main missions of UN (United Nations) is peacekeeping to maintain international peace and security. The UN peacekeeping helps parties in disputed or troubled regions make a peace agreement and monitors whether they maintain the agreement. It also provides SAR (Search and Rescue) and restoring operations in disaster areas as well. The DPKO (Department of Peacekeeping Operation) of UN currently lead 16 peacekeeping activities, for example, monitoring armistice agreements in Middle East area and restoring destroyed economy and infrastructure of Haiti due to a severe earthquake in 2010 (UN, 2010).The DPKO needs various supports in the areas of finance, logistics, ICT (Information, communication and technology), human resources and general administration to conduct their field operations successfully. Especially, the GIS (geospatial information systems) provided by the ICT division is a critical element for the field operations. Based on the GIS, the DPKO can develop and implement field activities strategy for mission objectives. The UNGSC (UN Global Service Centre) within the DFS (Department of Field Support) provides the mission specific and adaptive GIS with the DPKO. Those GIS are established in accordance with the GIS Service Catalogue and Performance Management framework (UNGSC, 2010).The GIS provides the functions of analysis, interpretation and visualization based on geospatial information, and help us understand spatial trends of events or plan for responses for the events efficiently (ESRI, 2011). The geospatial information should be generated so rapidly that the GIS can be established and applied to mission operations immediately. For the rapid generation of the geospatial information, the UNGSC used to employ existing sensory data such as aerial or satellite images. The existing satellite images, which may be easy to obtain, retain lower resolution ...