Adantages of UAV-Copters for Environmental Applications

Teja Kattenborn

Copter-UAVs as a plattform– In general enable heavier payloads / multiple sensors– Convertable payload enables more flexibility and versatile applications

(e.g. LIDAR, RGB-, NIR-, Thermal-, Hyperspectral-Cameras, Air-Quality sensors and data-loggers)

– Controllable camera mounting, viewing in any horizontal/vertical direction

Flight characteristics / planning

• Vertical take-off and landing, Feasibility to operate from very small sized areas (e.g. within forests, plantations)

• Nature of vertical take-off aircrafts enables various flight patterns, adaptable to application and terrain

Take-off / landing area, ca. 6*6 m

UAV-based photogrammetric point clouds - tree stem mapping in open stands (A. Fritz, T. Kattenborn, B. Koch, 2013)• tree stems = “vertical objects”

45° camera angle• Forests = complex 3D-structures

zick zack flight pattern

automatic detection of:• tree position• tree height• diameter at breast height (dbh)

Flight characteristics / planning: case study

3D-Reconstruction results:

• Potential low cruise speeds alow for high image overlapsHigh point densitiesLess occlusion by objects as vegetation / buildings

• Very good image quality due to high stability• High payload capacity enables SLR or digital System cameras

fast shooting speed (Lumix G3: ca. 90 images / min)

Photogammetric point clouds

Photogammetric point clouds: case study

Point cloud - RGB

Potential of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Based Photogrammetric Point Clouds for Automatic Single Tree Detection (M. Sperlich, T. Kattenborn, 2013)

Test sites:a) Decidious forestb) coniferous forest

Image flight:• Altiutue 100m• 250 nadir images / site

Methods:• Calculation of DSM / DTM / nDSM• Pouring algorithm

Point cloud – height gradient

Photogammetric point clouds: case study

Test sites:a) Decidious forestb) Coniferous forest

Objectives:• Tree crown delination• Single tree detection

Results:• 193/212 trees detected• …

Potential of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Based Photogrammetric Point Clouds for Automatic Single Tree Detection(M. Sperlich, T. Kattenborn, 2013)

Point cloud - RGBPoint cloud – height gradient

Replacement Possible ?

Thanks ...