An unmanned helicopter based mapping system with differential GPS and multi-Sensor
Low-altitude UAV( Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) based mapping system is a new type of spatial information acquisition and processing equipment overall the world in recent years. It takes UAV equipped with camera systems, GPS receivers, IMU, laser scanners,automatic flight control systems and other equipments as a platform to obtain ground information in flexible,fast and efficient, precise and accurate, safe, reliable, low operating cost, wide application characteristics, and has been used in the digital city rapid updates , the new rural surveying and mapping support services, emergency disaster relief, etc. It could be taken as an important supplementary means of satellite remote sensing and traditional aerial photography methods. This paper described an unmanned helicopter based mapping system developed by the authors in Japan. The system is equipped with differential GPS and IMU for direct geographic location and orientation with fewer or without ground control points. The onboard laser scanner could be used to collect ground surface model directly georeferenced through the post processed GPS/IMU data and triangulation with the images captured with onboard cameras. The geometric accuracy of the system was verified with actual flight data, and the results showed that the system could be used to map large-scale topographic maps and other areas of application.
Unmanned helicoptermulti-sensornon-ground controlphotogrammetry and remote sensinglarge scale mapping