A Study of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photogrammetry for Environment Mapping: Preliminary Observation

Abstract

This paper presents the preliminary work is a part of a research focusing on close range photogrammetry for landslide monitoring.The main objective of this paper is to present the Close Range Photogrammetry (CRP) technique, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) will provide a platform to monitor the surface area This method was applied using the capabilities and power of Gatewing, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for data capturing with respect to UAV tracking conducted in UTP, Tronoh, Perak, on 15th March 2012 at 150m height. The Gatewing is designed for rapid terrain mapping with fully automated image processing. The result proves that data processing were conducted by Srecthout Software. Flight planning was carried out on site, where the areas to be observed are situated inside the UTP campus. The paper focus on final production of an orthomosaic. In conclusion, it is demonstrated that Gatewing, UAV is the best, fast and powerful mapping vehicle for close range photogrammetry application in future works. It shows highly excellent performance compared to other UAVs already established in the market today. Keywords: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV); Close Range Photogrammetry (CRP); Gatewing; orthomosaic; terrain.