UAV-Based Photogrammetric Mapping

Group 8 Dyah Puspasari W. (38724) Frida Kurniawati (37820)

KEY WORDS: UAV, Mapping, Photogrammetry, ABSTRACT

There are two kinds of platform used for mapping system. One is using manned aircraft, while another is Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Manned system is used firstly, and it has some advantages, one of them is the intelligence of human being piloting the aircraft. But nowadays, UAV is more efficient to be used because of its low-cost and high-end system. With a super-wide-angle camera, GPS, and many more sensors combining with a computer at ground station used to communicate with the aircraft in real-time to monitor flight parameters and send out control commands, it become easier to do mapping process. This process stage followed by aerial triangulation, DEM, and DOM process using photogrammetric software to make 3D model.
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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Definition Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) dont focus to certain kind of vehicle only. Further, they concern in all aerial vehicles, which are flying in the air with no person onboard; and with capabilities of controlling the aircraft manually and or automatically [1]. Its also can be said that UAVs are to be understood as uninhabited and reusable motorized aerial vehicles [2]. Differed from manned vehicles, it stand-out that in UAV no pilot exists physically. But, it doesnt mean that this vehicle flies by itselfone hundred percents autonomously. Instead, in many cases, the crew (operator, backup-pilot etc.) responsible for a UAV is larger than that of a conventional aircraft [2]. The characteristics of UAV can be simply said as remotely controlled, semi autonomous, or autonomous; or have combination of those capabilities. Actually, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are a part of Unmanned Vehicle Systems which usually used in the various fields, like computer science, artificial intelligence, etc. to describe the technology of unmanned. 1.2. Brief History Firstly, unmanned aerial vehicle was used in wars around the world. For example, it was first used in the American Civil War. This concept was also used by the Japanese for

around a month in World War II, when they tried to launch balloons with incendiary and other explosives. The idea was that high-altitude winds would carry them to the United States, where the dropping bombs would cause panic. Apparently, both these ideas were not effective. In the 1960s, the US started to develop drones, which were unmanned vehicles built for spying and reconnaissance. The first such drone was the Firebee drone, a jet propelled by an engine made by Ryan Aeronautical Company. They were initially used heavily over Communist China in the 1960s, when major flaws were discovered and corrected. The Vietnam War was the first time that UAVs, the drones in particular, were used extensively in reconnaissance and combat roles. An example of popular UAV is the Global Hawk. This is a jet powered UAV that was used effectively in Afghanistan. It operates at around 60,000 feet, and carries a wide range of sensors. UAVs that are in use and under development are both long-range and high-endurance vehicles. The Predator, for instance, can stay in the air for around 40 hours. The Global Hawk can stay in the air for 24 hours. Then, unmanned aircraft are slowing finding their way into commercial applications. The US government is looking into using UAVs for surveillance over high crime areas, in order to prevent crimes from happening. They could also be used to control hot spots, where violence takes place habitually [3]. This paper particularly will discuss about the use of UAV in the field of remote sensing, especially for photogrammetric mapping.

2. UAV PHOTOGRAMMETRY
Nowadays, UAV photogrammetry describes a photogrammetric measurement platform, which operates remotely controlled, semi-autonomously, or autonomously, without a pilot existing in the vehicle. Photogrammetric measurement system is included in the platform, but not limited to a small or medium size still-video camera, thermal or infrared camera systems, airbone LiDAR system, or combination thereof. There are new various applications offered by UAV photogrammetry, not only applications in the close range domain, combining aeerial and terrestrial photogrammetry, but also introduces new real time application and low cost alternatives to the clasiccal manned aerial photogrammetry. See Table below. [2]

Table 1 : Features of Aerial, close range and UAV photogrammetry.

2.1. Advantages In photogrammetry and remote sensing disciplines, UAVs have a lot of advantages compared to manned ones. First, UAVs provide a new, controllable platform for remote data acquisition; manoeuvrability of UAVs permits remote data acquisition in environments dangerous to human life, and/or inaccessible to direct examination (e.g. forest fires, volcanoes, toxic spills, transportation disasters, etc.); UAVs provide potential for acquiring remote data more rapidly and at lower cost than from piloted/manned aerial vehicles [4]. UAVs are also equipped with high end systems. In many particular case of high-risk situation, UAVs can flight at low altitude and at flight profile close to the object where manned systems cant be flown. It also offer a real-time processing capability and the ability for fast data acquisition, while transmitting the image, video, and orientation data in real time to the ground control station (GCS). Furthermore, in cloudy and drizzly weather conditions, the data acquisition with UAVs is still possible, when the distance to the object permits flying below the clouds. Such weather conditions do not allow the data acquisition with large format cameras integrated into manned aircrafts due to required larger flight altitude above ground. In addition, one fundamental advantage of using UAVs is that they are not burdened with the physiological limitations and economic expenses of human pilots [2]. 2.2. Limitation Due to its low-cost system, UAVs have some limitation as below. 1. Use of small or medium format amateur camera due to limitation in weight and dimension. The consequence is UAVs have to acquire a higher number of images in order to obtain the same image coverage and comparable image resolution. 2. The low-cost sensors are less stable than high-end sensors reduce image quality. 3. Less accurate results for the orientation of the sensors because of low weight navigation units. 4. Less powerful engines limiting the reachable altitude.

5.

Existing commercial software packages applied for photogrammetric data processing are rarely set up to support UAV images, as through no standardized workflows and sensor models are being implemented. 6. There are no benefit from sensing and intelligent features of human beings, especially in unexpected situations. 7. There are no sufficient regulations for UAVs given by the civil and security authorities 8. They are not equipped with air traffic communication equipments and collision avoidance system, like manned aircrafts. So, UAVs are restricted to the flight in lineof-sight and to opertae with a back-up pilot. 9. The operation distance depends on the range of the radio link for rotary and fixed wing UAVs. 10. There are may be interferences of frequencies used for communication between GCS and UAVs caused by other system or may suffer from signal jamming which can cause flight disorders. But, seeing that the technology of UAVs is developed rapidly, there is no reason to not believe that those limitations will can be overcame.

3. UAV SYSTEM
There is a GCS (Ground Control Station) needed to control the aircraft. So, it needs not only reliable communication links to and from the aircraft, but also to the local Air Traffic Control (ATC) authorities if required. It usually happens when the aircraft flying higher than 150-200 m above the ground. The GCS provides a working space for a pilot, navigator, instrument operator and usually a mission commander [5]. Thats we called it possibly needs more crew than manned aircraft. The data received by the GCS from the instruments is either processed on-site or forwarded to a processing centre. This can be done using standard telecommunication means. Of course, when operating low-cost systems, most of the GCS functions can be combined in the handheld remote controls that are typical for these systems. In that case, there is no data transmission for the instrument; all data are stored on-board. Figure 1. Ground Control Station [12]. Figure 2. Quadcopter UAV after take off.

3.1.

Physical Components

Figure 3.[6].

Figure 4. Components weControl Mini UAV [1]

3.2. Classification Table 2 : Classification of UAVs according to the classes unpowered and powered, as well as lighter or heavier than air. Lighter Than Air Unpowered Balloon Heavier Than Air Flexible wing Fixed wing Hang glider Gliders Paraglider Kites Paraglider Propeller Jet engines

Rotary wing Rotorkites

Powered

Airship

Single rotor Coaxial Quadrotors Multi-rotors

Table 3 : Classification of the CASA for UAVs. Class Class I Micro Class II Small Class III Large UAVs UAVs UAVs Specifications Take-off weight of Take-off weight of Take-off weight of 100g less than 150kg

Figure 5. Classification of UAVs by range and altitude based on Figure 1 in van Blyenburgh, 1999[2].

Table 4: Classification of UAVs regarding to the type of georeferencing, real time capability and application requirements. Sensors No GPS/INS Georeferencin g post Real-time capability 0 + Application requirement Low accuracy [m] Moderate accuracy [dmm] High accuracy [cm] UAV category OM-class M- & L-class

GPS and post/direct consumergrade INS DGPS/ post/direct navigation- and tactical grade INS

++

M- & L-class

Two kinds of platform are accepted for mapping UAV system. One is remotelypiloted aircraft. Another is unmanned airship. The useful load required is up to 15 kg. The photographic flying height is between 100 and 4000 meters, with speed 18160 kilometres per hour. The remote pilot has both manual remote operation and

automatic programming control functions. A simple constructed two dimensional stabilization plant are designed to keep the image sensors optical axis directed at vertical [7]. UVS (Unmanned Aerial System)-International defines a mini UAV system as shown in table below. Table 5: A mini UAV system defined by UVS-International [1].

3.3. Sensor System 1. Airframe A modified radio controlled aircraft with primary flight system consisting of the engine and drive train, main rotor and tail rotor assembly, control actuators, and structural components. For example, Airstar International Mongoose airframe helicopter, which is powered by a 26cc, single cylinder, Zenoah G260H engine producing approximately 1940 W at 12,000 rpm, an operating head speed rpm. Its weight 6.1 kg, capable to carry 6.4 kg of payload. Its fuel capacity is 475 cc, which can use for approximately 45 minutes without payload and 30 minutes with payload. The battery 90 minutes of power-on time for the entire system. 2. Autonomous Flight Controller Its a combination of Rotomotion Automatic Flight Control System hardware (AFCS) and custom Mission Control System Software (MCS) to design and execute pre-programmed waypoint path, monitoring mission-specific intelligent control software, maintaining full control of the vehicle. The MCS software runs on the ground base station computer and manages the guidance and navigation control behavior of the UAV system. The rotomotion AFCS which has function to stabilize the position of UAV consists of: An embedded computer running Linux WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System)-enabled GPS with unit

 3-axis magnetometer which utillizes PID (Proportional-Integrative-Derivative) controllers to maintain altitude and altitude in translational flight and hover; flight during a fast-forward flight mode. GPS provides position of the aircraft and maintain course and speed, as well as fixed hovering position. 3. Imaging Sensor UAV uses USB video camera, or digital camera which supports NEMA sentence capturing from external GPS units, thus the time of image capture and the exact position of capture could be recorded into the image header for later review and correlation. A custom camera trigger is made controller by the AFCS. The camera will be triggered at preset GPS waypoints.

4.

PHOTOGRAMMETRIC PROCESS

4.1. Aerial Triangulation Aerial triangulation in photogrammetry is methods of determine and calculate 3dimensional object coordinates by photogrammetric means, by using photographs exposed from different positions, covering the same object. With aerial triangulation in aerial photogrammetry we might be able to calculate 3-dimensional coordinates for object elements on almost any object. We need at least some points with known position that are visible in at least some of the photographs. These points we call ground control points, or any control points, the control points have to be a part of the aerial triangulation. Figure 6. triangulation. Aerial

Still we need at least five control points inside each aerial photogrammetry model to be able to do an absolute orientation of the model. In aerial photogrammetry, to be able to get that many points a method named aerial triangulation is developed. This method is that we measure several unknown point clearly visible in the aerial triangulation in a stereo instrument. These new points together with the ground control points and the exposures positions for the camera are put together in a big computation.

The result we get out of this is the coordinates in the reference system for all the new measured points [8]. According to the feature of data get from the UAV acquisition system, a special aerial triangulation program has been developed. The advantage features of this software are as follow: 1) Making high precision calibration for the geometric distortion from normal purpose used digital cameral. 2) Using Pos or GPS data combined with image matching to reconstruct the topologic relation of the images along the flying direction and between the neighbouring lines. 3) All the points in the triangulation network are selected and measured fully automatically. 4) multi-view geometric relations of the images are solved by large block adjustment with least square method. 5) The coarse error are detected full automatically by large number of redundant observations. 6) The result of orientation elements and control points are calculated through alternative solution to achieve 1:2000, 1:1000 or 1:500 scale mapping standard.

Figure 7. Select and measure the observed points fully automatically.

Figure 8. Multi-view geometric relations of the images. [7]

Figure 9. Aerial Triangulation in LPS Core 4.2. DEM (Digital Elevation Model) Production There are three important terms related to DEM. First, DEM itself. The term Digital Elevation Model is often used as a generic term for DSMs and DTMs, only representing height information without any further definition about the surface. A DEM can be represented as a raster (a grid of squares, also known as a heightmap when representing elevation) or as a vector-based Triangular Irregular Network (TIN). The TIN DEM dataset is also referred to as a primary (measured) DEM, whereas the Raster DEM is referred to as a secondary (computed) DEM. The quality of a DEM is a measure of how accurate elevation is at each pixel (absolute accuracy) and how accurately is the morphology presented (relative accuracy). Several factors play an important role for quality of DEM-derived products:

terrain roughness; sampling density (elevation data collection method); grid resolution or pixel size; interpolation algorithm; vertical resolution; terrain analysis algorithm; Reference3D products include quality masks that give information on: the coastline, lake, snow, clouds, correlation, etc [9].

Figure 10. DEM Digital Elevation Models are data files that contain the elevation of the terrain over a specified area, usually at a fixed grid interval over the "Bare Earth". The intervals between each of the grid points will always be referenced to some geographical coordinate system. This is usually either latitude-longitude or UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) coordinate systems. The closer together the grid points are located, the more detailed the information will be in the file. The details of the peaks and valleys in the terrain will be better modeled with small grid spacing than when the grid intervals are very large. Elevations other than at the specific grid point locations are not contained in the file. As a result peak points and valley points not coincident with the grid will not be recorded in the file. For practical purpose this "Bare Earth" DEM is generally synonymous with a Digital Terrain Model (DTM). Common uses of DEMs include:

Extracting terrain parameters Modeling water flow or mass movement (for example, landslides) Creation of relief maps Rendering of 3D visualizations Creation of physical models (including raised-relief maps) Rectification of aerial photography or satellite imagery Reduction (terrain correction) of gravity measurements (gravimetry, physical geodesy) Terrain analyses in geomorphology and physical geography. Second, a Digital Surface Model (DSM) which represents the MSL elevations of the reflective surfaces of trees, buildings, and other features elevated above the "Bare Earth".

Figure 11. DSM

Third, TINs which are sets of adjacent, non-overlapping triangles computed from irregularly spaced points with x/y coordinates and z-values. TIN models are used to provide better control over terrain slope, aspect, surface areas, volumetric and cut-fill analysis and generating contours.

Figure 12. Example of TIN. The TIN's vector data structure is based on irregularly-spaced point, line and polygon data interpreted as mass points and breaklines and stores the topological relationship between triangles and their adjacent neighbors [10]. After aerial triangulation the multi-view images are reorganized to be divided automatically into basic units as the stereo pairs in traditional photogrammetry. Then the DSM is automatically generated by image matching and TIN interpolation within every unit. It need a little manual interaction operation to separate the points upon the building or lie down at grand for generation DEM. ALL units are link up to form fully coverage DEM [7]. Figure 13. The generation of DEM.

4.3. DOM (Digital Orthophoto Map) Production The digital orthophoto process transforms a vertical aerial photograph into the equivalent of a traditional map. Yet it retains the advantages of a photographvisually

displaying actual cultural and land features, and the built environment, rather than representing those features using symbols and lines [11]. The DOM is also produced automatically based on the orientation elements and DEM results. Because 80 percent overlapping along flying direction have acquired from aerialphotography, only the centre part of image in the frame have been taken to be rectified into orthophoto imagery. Figure 14. Orthophoto imagery.

5. CONCLUSION
UAV-based mapping has became an alternative to produce high resolution digital and optical image which can support the application of large-scale mapping with lower cost than using manned aircraft. Although it has some limitations, but we can overcome it by designing the light and small combined super-wide-angle camera which has the selfcalibration function to construct the practical low altitude UAV system combining with the use of powerful automatic photogrammetric processing software. Hence, mapping process becomes easier, quicker, and of course, without decrease its quality.

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