UAVs in Context: Archaeological Airborne Recording in a National Body of Survey and Record

David Cowley,George Geddes,Georgina Brown,Charles Moriarty,Tom Wade,Caroline Nichol

doi:10.3390/drones2010002

David Cowley, George Geddes + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/drones2010002

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Journal: Drones	Publication Date: Dec 23, 2017
Citations: 43	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Historic Environment Scotland, University of Edinburgh

Abstract

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is the lead public body which investigates, promotes and cares for the historic environment in Scotland. It undertakes a range of archaeological airborne work from detailed documentation of individual sites to extensive national programmes of prospection. In undertaking this work HES draws on a variety of aerial platforms to collect imagery, including light aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV—used throughout this paper as an umbrella term). In all cases, the archaeological questions at hand are the key driver for choice of methodology and platforms, recognising that different types of survey and documentation demand different responses. Differing strands of aerial work will be briefly described, followed by short case studies that illustrate the range of our activities, concluding with thoughts on the context of UAV work for archaeological applications.

Highlights

In 2017, Historic Environment Scotland (HES) issued a tender to appoint a Service Provider for the supply of aircraft to the HES aerial survey programme
The value of the airborne perspective for recording and understanding all aspects of Scotland’s historic environment was quickly recognised and the scope expanded to take in architectural subjects and urban areas, though in this paper we focus on archaeological monuments and landscapes
Since we have developed an in-house platform for photography, with contractors to produce higher-end imagery to generate metrically accurate highworked with contractors to produce higher-end imagery to generate metrically accurate high-resolution resolution point clouds and derived products, and progressed our interest in multispectral imagery point clouds and derivedMasters products, and progressed our interest in multispectral imagery through through a UAV-based dissertation project

Summary

Introduction

In 2017, Historic Environment Scotland (HES) issued a tender to appoint a Service Provider for the supply of aircraft to the HES aerial survey programme This specified single- and twin-engine aircraft, suitably maintained and insured for aerial reconnaissance and photographic work over the whole of Scotland, including more remote areas involving a significant sea-crossing. Such aircraft are required to progress a variety of aerial work, from detailed documentation of individual sites to extensive prospection, all with a primary objective of enhancing the National Record of the Historic. The tender produced some responses to supply the required aircraft, but the majority of enquiries arising from the tender were from UAV operators. There was a sense that we should be using UAVs routinely rather than other platforms, and that perhaps we were unaware of just how useful they could be

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