大载荷长航时无人机航空应急测绘系统设计与实现

无人机航空摄影是应急测绘保障的重要手段。近年来,大载荷长航时无人机已逐步进入民用领域。以往关于航空应急测绘系统的研究主要是针对轻小型无人机和有人机,缺少适用于大载荷长航时无人机性能和特点的系统设计方法。本文首先分析了不同固定翼无人机产品的性能差异,从无人机平台、任务传感器、遥感数据处理软件等的集成关系入手,提出了基于航测控制器的多载荷一体化集成的设计方案,以及涵盖航摄规划、视频实时处理、影像高精度处理的软件系统集成方案。采用该设计方案研制实现了CH-4航空应急测绘系统,并在四川广元某区域进行了试验,结果表明该系统不仅可以同时获取视频、光学影像和SAR数据,而且数据获取质量能够满足大比例尺测图的要求。     

轻小型无人机测绘遥感系统研究进展

地球空间信息是人工智能、大数据时代的重要数据基础,轻小型无人机测绘遥感技术作为中国当前和未来获取厘米级分辨率、实时响应遥感数据的主要手段,必将发挥更加重要的作用。本文首先介绍了固定翼、多旋翼、无人直升机以及飞行控制系统、地面监控系统和遥控遥测链路的发展现状和潜在发展趋势;其次重点研究了数码相机、视频摄像机、倾斜相机、激光雷达、合成孔径雷达和定姿定位系统的利用现状和发展趋势;然后总结分析了当前无人机测绘遥感面临的系统检测、大范围实时遥感和遥感大数据精准解译方面的问题和挑战;最后面向人工智能、大数据、物联网、云计算等技术背景给出了轻小型无人机测绘遥感技术在飞行控制智能化、测绘遥感作业智能化和实时、实景无人机遥感技术应用模式创新等方面的发展趋势。     

Salient man-made object detection based on saliency potential energy for unmanned aerial vehicles remote sensing image

Abstract

It is difficult to automatically recognize complex ground objects, and massive data images with the super-high ground resolution in images captured by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In order to directly identify the salient man-made ground objects from the UAV remote sensing (RS) image, a saliency detection method based on saliency potential energy (SPE) is proposed. With a detection, filtration and backtracking strategy, the texture, shape and colour of the UAV RS image are comprehensively and numerally analysed by the SPE to detect the salient man-made objects. Both qualitative and quantitative evaluations have indicated that, compared to the state-of-art saliency detection methods, our method could achieve better performance with better accuracy and less errors, which prove that our method has great application potential in UAV RS image understanding.     

高精度、微小型惯性/GPS组合导航系统研究

针对INS/GPS组合导航系统航向角可观测性差的问题,提出了把航向信息耦合到Kalman滤波器量测方程中的方法,以及用航位推算校正航向的方法来抑制航向角发散的趋势。为满足低成本、小型化的要求,以MEMS陀螺和加速度计为核心,构建了高精度组合导航系统。仿真试验表明,两种算法均达到了较高的定位/定向精度,对导航系统在小型化领域的推广应用具有实际意义。     

无人机倾斜摄影支持下的1∶500高精度三维测图方案及应用

研发了一种适合于大范围1∶500的无人机测图方案,围绕平面和高程点位中误差在5 cm以内这一核心目标,从无人机的平台稳定性、空中精准定位飞控、空三与三维建模及模型与影像结合的多视角测图等方面进行了设计。在广州马沥村的应用表明,本文研究的无人机倾斜摄影方案可以满足1∶500高精度的三维测图,并具有较高的效率。     

无人机视觉SLAM协同建图与导航

地面机器人由于其工作空间的限制,对环境感知存在较大局限性,结合空中机器人在视角方面的优势,实现空地机器人协作是主流趋势。本文提出了一种基于无人机视觉SLAM的协同建图与导航方法,利用无人机空中视角带来的大范围环境感知能力,协助地面机器人快速构建环境模型,提高地面机器人在具有挑战性的未知环境中建图与导航能力。本文方法首先构建了一个显著闭合边界实时检测和跟踪线程,结合点、线特征以及显著闭合边界,提出一种视觉SLAM方法用于无人机空中建图,与传统方法相比,闭合边界的结合极大优化了建图的效果。其次,地面机器人根据无人机获得的初始全局地图自动规划全局路径,在移动过程中,利用搭载的激光传感器对无人机建的初始地图进行更新,并且对路径进行连续的重新规划,避免与障碍物发生碰撞。为了验证本文方法的可行性和先进性,分别进行了仿真试验和真实试验。试验结果表明,本文方法显著提高了建图效果,实现了协同建图与导航方法的完整过程,提高了地面机器人在具有挑战的未知区域中进行自主建图和导航的能力。但是本文方法在障碍物分布密集、地面高低起伏等复杂情况下效果不佳,且实现的二维导航局限性大,未来工作立足于融合激光雷达、IMU等多传感器,提高深度估计和位姿估计等任务效果用于构建精准的三维占据栅格地图,并进一步设计三维空间空地协同建图与导航的方法。     

Low-altitude geophysical magnetic prospecting based on multirotor UAV as a promising replacement for traditional ground survey

Abstract

The prospects for expanding the mineral resource base in many countries are linked with the exploration of stranded sites localized at unexplored areas with complex natural and landscape conditions that make any ground survey, including magnetic prospecting, difficult and expensive. The current level of geology requires high-precision and large-scale data at the first stages of geological exploration. Since 2012, technologies of aeromagnetic surveying with unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAV) enter the market, but most of them are based on big fixed-wing UAV and do not allow to substantially increase the level of survey granularity compared with traditional aerial methods. To increase the scale of survey, it is necessary to reduce the altitude and speed of flight, for which the authors develop the methodical and technical solutions described in this article. To obtain data at altitudes of 5 m above the terrain even in a rugged relief, we created heavy multirotor UAVs that are stable in flight and may be used in a wide range of environmental conditions (even a moderate snowfall), and develop a special software to generate flight missions on the basis of digital elevation models. A UAV has special design to reduce magnetic interference of the flight platform; the magnetic sensor is hung below the aircraft. This technology was conducted in a considerable amount of magnetic surveys in the mountainous regions of East Siberia between 2014 and 2016. The results of the comparison between airborne and ground surveys are presented, which show that the sensitivity of the developed system in conjunction with low-altitude measurements can cover any geologically significant anomalies of the magnetic field. An unmanned survey is cheaper and more productive; the multirotor-based technologies may largely replace traditional ground magnetic exploration in scales of 1:10,000?1:1000.     

Accuracy assessment of real-time kinematics (RTK) measurements on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for direct geo-referencing

ABSTRACT

Geospatial information acquired with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) provides valuable decision-making support in many different domains, and technological advances coincide with a demand for ever more sophisticated data products. One consequence is a research and development focus on more accurately referenced images and derivatives, which has long been a weakness especially of low to medium cost UAV systems equipped with relatively inexpensive inertial measurement unit (IMU) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers. This research evaluates the positional accuracy of the real-time kinematics (RTK) GNSS on the DJI Matrice 600 Pro, one of the first available and widely used UAVs with potentially surveying-grade performance. Although a very high positional accuracy of the drone itself of 2 to 3 cm is claimed by DJI, the actual accuracy of the drone RTK for positioning the images and for using it for mapping purposes without additional ground control is not known. To begin with, the actual GNSS RTK position of reference center (the physical point on the antenna) on the drone is not indicated, and uncertainty regarding this also exists among the professional user community. In this study the reference center was determined through a set of experiments using the dual frequency static Leica GNSS with RTK capability. The RTK positioning data from the drone were then used for direct georeferencing, and its results were evaluated. Test flights were carried out over a 70 x 70 m area with an altitude of 40 m above the ground, with a ground sampling distance of 1.3 cm. Evaluated against ground control points, the planimetric accuracy of direct georeferencing for the photogrammetric product ranged between 30 and 60 cm. Analysis of direct georeferencing results showed a time delay of up to 0.28 seconds between the drone GNSS RTK and camera image acquisition affecting direct georeferencing results.     

GNSS integration with vision-based navigation for low GNSS visibility conditions

In urban canyons, buildings and other structures often block the line of sight of visible Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) satellites, which makes it difficult to obtain four or more satellites to provide a three-dimensional navigation solution. Previous studies on this operational environment have been conducted based on the assumption that GNSS is not available. However, a limited number of satellites can be used with other sensor measurements, although the number is insufficient to derive a navigation solution. The limited number of GNSS measurements can be integrated with vision-based navigation to correct navigation errors. We propose an integrated navigation system that improves the performance of vision-based navigation by integrating the limited GNSS measurements. An integrated model was designed to apply the GNSS range and range rate to vision-based navigation. The possibility of improved navigation performance was evaluated during an observability analysis based on available satellites. According to the observability analysis, each additional satellite decreased the number of unobservable states by one, while vision-based navigation always has three unobservable states. A computer simulation was conducted to verify the improvement in the navigation performance by analyzing the estimated position, which depended on the number of available satellites; additionally, an experimental test was conducted. The results showed that limited GNSS measurements can improve the positioning performance. Thus, our proposed method is expected to improve the positioning performance in urban canyons.     

Estimation of crowd density from UAVs images based on corner detection procedures and clustering analysis

With rapid developments in platforms and sensors technology in terms of digital cameras and video recordings, crowd monitoring has taken a considerable attentions in many disciplines such as psychology, sociology, engineering, and computer vision. This is due to the fact that, monitoring of the crowd is necessary to enhance safety and controllable movements to minimize the risk particularly in highly crowded incidents (e.g. sports). One of the platforms that have been extensively employed in crowd monitoring is unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), because UAVs have the capability to acquiring fast, low costs, high-resolution and real-time images over crowd areas. In addition, geo-referenced images can also be provided through integration of on-board positioning sensors (e.g. GPS/IMU) with vision sensors (digital cameras and laser scanner). In this paper, a new testing procedure based on feature from accelerated segment test (FAST) algorithms is introduced to detect the crowd features from UAV images taken from different camera orientations and positions. The proposed test started with converting a circle of 16 pixels surrounding the center pixel into a vector and sorting it in ascending/descending order. A single pixel which takes the ranking number 9 (for FAST-9) or 12 (for FAST-12) was then compared with the center pixel. Accuracy assessment in terms of completeness and correctness was used to assess the performance of the new testing procedure before and after filtering the crowd features. The results show that the proposed algorithms are able to extract crowd features from different UAV images. Overall, the values of Completeness range from 55 to 70 % whereas the range of correctness values was 91 to 94 %.     

Super-resolution enhancement of UAV images based on fractional calculus and POCS

Abstract

A super-resolution enhancement algorithm was proposed based on the combination of fractional calculus and Projection onto Convex Sets (POCS) for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) images. The representative problems of UAV images including motion blur, fisheye effect distortion, overexposed, and so on can be improved by the proposed algorithm. The fractional calculus operator is used to enhance the high-resolution and low-resolution reference frames for POCS. The affine transformation parameters between low-resolution images and reference frame are calculated by Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) for matching. The point spread function of POCS is simulated by a fractional integral filter instead of Gaussian filter for more clarity of texture and detail. The objective indices and subjective effect are compared between the proposed and other methods. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method outperforms other algorithms in most cases, especially in the structure and detail clarity of the reconstructed images.     

基于嵩山定标场的无人机数据快速成图应用

无人机作为一个高效的测绘平台,越来越多地被应用到生产作业中。研究无人机数据快速成图的技术基础,基于GPU加速的同名点匹配技术,并根据嵩山定标场的测绘需求进行试验。采用无人机获取的影像16 179张,结合场内高精度地面控制点,快速处理得到嵩山定标场约50km2的高精度数字正射影像图(DOM),精度为平面点位中误差2.7cm,约0.5个像素。通过试验验证基于无人机数据快速成图的高效率和高精度,同时为后续的国产卫星、大型航测相机、无人机等定标检校提供参考。     

基于遥感任务的凹多边形区域无人机航迹规划算法

针对遥感观测的需求与特点,提出一种基于遥感任务的凹多边形区域无人机 (UAV) 航迹规划算法,旨在保证UAV不相撞与区域全覆盖的前提下,总耗时更短. 根据遥感影像获取的特点,采用统一主飞行方向,定点拍摄进行UAV航迹规划. 通过航线分割点求取、多边形划分、UAV分配、碎片多边形合并与UAV再分配以及航点信息求取五个步骤,得到在选定主飞行方向的情况下UAV航迹的优化. 通过选取凹多边形及其凸包的边所在的方向分别为主方向,得到全局最优解. 实验结果表明:该算法能合理分配UAV并进行航迹规划,比传统方法更为高效、适用性更强.      

UNCONTROLLED MAPPING FROM AIR PHOTOGRAPHS

Abstract

Many methods of mapping from air photographs “without control” have been proposed from time to time. Usually this means having no control, or very little, on the ground. The following paper describes some experiences of mapping without controlling the photographs inter se, a suggestion which must rank as improper with a Photogrammetrist.     

基于车载CCD影像的物方几何参数量算

介绍了用车载CCD相机所获得的影像测求物方空间目标几何参数的原则和方法，通过试验得出了一些有益的结论和建议。     

Earth observations during space shuttle mission STS‐34: 18–23 October 1989

Abstract

Although high‐resolution microwave synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors possess all‐weather capability for mapping soil moisture from spaceborne platforms, continuous temporal and spatial monitoring of this important hydrological parameter has been relatively limited. However, the recent launch of operational SAR sensors aboard various satellites have made possible synoptic soil moisture monitoring a reality. Such systems operate over a wide range of frequencies, look angles, and polarization combinations, and thus show synergistic advantages when combined for estimating soil moisture patterns. Two soil moisture inversion algorithms have been developed using as inputs radar backscattering data at L, S, and C bands in the microwave frequency range. These models have been tested using radar image simulation with speckle added. It is observed that the neural network algorithm yields superior results in mapping actual soil moisture patterns over the linear statistical inversion technique, although both models show comparable errors in soil moisture estimation. We infer that using statistical estimation errors alone for comparison purposes may lead to erroneous conclusions regarding the advantages of one soil moisture inversion algorithm over another.     

无人机航摄方案计算机辅助设计研究

随着科技发展,无人机航空摄影测量以其实时性高、机动灵活、数据获取精度高的优势逐渐成为现代测绘技术的重要手段,在测绘领域发挥着越来越重要的作用.然而,当前无人机航摄方案设计书的制定主要依赖人工,未通过系统设备进行辅助完成,需要耗费大量的精力,难以满足无人机航摄的具体工作要求.针对上述问题,提出了利用计算机辅助设计无人机航空摄影测量方案的技术方法,在无人机航飞之前根据航区设计及相关参数制定一份方案设计书,方便工作人员对无人机飞行作业的可行性及安全性进行理论验证,提升了航摄方案设计的自动化过程,提高了工作效率,同时为开展摄影测量工作提供技术和安全保障.      

UAV navigation system using line-based sensor pose estimation

Abstract

This work presents a mapping and tracking system based on images to enable a small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to accurately navigate in indoor and GPS-denied outdoor environments. A method is proposed to estimate the UAV’s pose (i.e., the 3D position and orientation of the camera sensor) in real-time using only the on-board RGB camera as the UAV travels through a known 3D environment (i.e., a 3D CAD model). Linear features are extracted and automatically matched between images collected by the UAV’s onboard RGB camera and the 3D object model. The matched lines from the 3D model serve as ground control to estimate the camera pose in real-time via line-based space resection. The results demonstrate that the proposed model-based pose estimation algorithm provides sub-meter positioning accuracies in both indoor and outdoor environments. It is also that shown the proposed method can provide sparse updates to correct the drift from complementary simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM)-derived pose estimates.     

Geo-questionnaires in urban planning: recruitment methods,participant engagement,and data quality

ABSTRACT

Recent focus on sustainable urban development and livability has increased the demand for new data sourcing techniques to capture experiences and preferences of urban dwellers. At the same time, developments of geospatial technologies and social media have enabled new types of user-generated geographic information and spatially explicit online communication. As a result, new public participation GIS methods for engaging large groups of individuals have emerged. One such method is geo-questionnaire, an online questionnaire with mapping capabilities, which has been used to elicit geographic data in variety of topics and geographical contexts. This article presents two recent cases, in which geo-questionnaires have been used in Polish cities to obtain public input on quality of life and development preferences in local land use planning. The article evaluates participant recruitment methods focusing on sample representativeness, participant engagement, and data quality. Recruitment via social media was found to increase bias towards younger population. Paper questionnaires used along the online version provided for better representation of target population’s age structure, but did not reduce bias related to educational attainment. We discuss how these issues relate to data usability and generalizability in the context of digital divide, and suggest directions for future research.     

消费级无人机在大比例尺测图中应用与精度评价

以分别搭载大视场角普通相机和鱼眼相机的消费级无人机为例,在对相机的高精度标定基础上,选取典型丘陵和山地实验区分别对两种消费级无人机大比例尺测图能力进行实验和精度评价,结果证明消费级无人机在合理的航测方式下,其测图结果的空三精度、分辨率及高程精度均可满足国家1∶500大比例尺地形测图的精度要求,可以推广应用到小范围大比例尺测图和修测任务中。