Abstract
Abstract. The article presents a set of initial results of a quality assessment study of 2 different types of sensors mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle, carried out over an especially designed and constructed test field. The PIQuAT (Portable Imagery Quality Assessment Test Field) field had been designed especially for the purposes of determining the quality parameters of UAV sensors, especially in terms of the spatial, spectral and radiometric resolutions and chosen geometric aspects. The sensor used include a multispectral framing camera and a high-resolution RGB sensor. The flights were conducted from a number of altitudes ranging from 10 m to 200 m above the test field. Acquiring data at a number of different altitudes allowed the authors to evaluate the obtained results and check for possible linearity of the calculated quality assessment parameters. The radiometric properties of the sensors were evaluated from images of the grayscale target section of the PIQuAT field. The spectral resolution of the imagery was determined based on a number of test samples with known spectral reflectance curves. These reference spectral reflectance curves were then compared with spectral reflectance coefficients at the wavelengths registered by the miniMCA camera. Before conducting all of these experiments in field conditions, the interior orientation parameters were calculated for the MiniMCA and RGB sensor in laboratory conditions. These parameters include: the actual pixel size on the detector, distortion parameters, calibrated focal length (CFL) and the coordinates of the principal point of autocollimation (miniMCA - for each of the six channels separately.
Highlights
In the past few years there had been a significant increase in the availability of imagery data, especially that obtained from sensors placed on unmanned aerial vehicles (Bendig et al, 2012) for remote sensing purposes, for imagery reconnaissance
The article presents a set of initial results of a quality assessment study of two different types of sensors mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle, carried out over an especially designed and constructed test field
Before executing experiment the interior orientation parameters were calculated for the MiniMCA sensor in laboratory conditions based on the 3D and 2D test fields
Summary
In the past few years there had been a significant increase in the availability of imagery data, especially that obtained from sensors placed on unmanned aerial vehicles (Bendig et al, 2012) for remote sensing purposes, for imagery reconnaissance. The quality of the system is determined by the spatial and radiometric resolution of the image and aberrations with which they are burdened (Kelcey & Lucieer, 2012) This is why such research should be carried out on the sensors in laboratory conditions, but on the complete UAV system configuration, incorporating the aerial vehicle itself, the sensors and any additional components in real life field conditions. The term calibration test is an especially designed structure, which when laid out flat on the ground and photographed, can be used to evaluate the sensor’s imaging capabilities. Each target has very specific geometrical and spectral characteristics Such structures usually have a flat modular design with the geometrical calibration elements applied with paints. The article presents a set of initial results of a quality assessment study of two different types of sensors mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle, carried out over an especially designed and constructed test field
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