PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
January 2014
19
We have been hearing a lot lately about
unmanned aircraft and its suitability for
mapping purposes; what is the status of
using a UAV in a mapping mission?
Anonymous
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
Dr. Abdullah:
The status of the unmanned aircraft tech-
nologies is maturing rapidly, thanks in part to the military
and defense use of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in
surveillance and combat operations. UAVs, or unmanned
aerial system (UAS) as it is referred to by the FAA and the
industry because it includes the entire system and not just
the vehicle itself, come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes,
design, weights and payloads. I will not discuss the lethal
large and heavyweight systems that the U.S. military and
CIA fly, such as Northrup Grumman’s RQ-4 Global Hawk
and General Atomics’ MQ-1 Predator. NASA introduced a
large and long-endurance UAS called Ikhana that is the
civilian version of the General Atomics Predator UAS (Figure
1). The Ikhana has a wingspan of 20 m and a maximum flying
altitude of 15,000 m (49,212ft) with a payload capacity of
950kg (2094Ib). The Ikhana, although it is perfect for large
project mapping, has a high cost that makes it impractical, if
it is not prohibited, for the mapping community to invest in.
In the last few years, many lightweight and small UAS
(with a weight of 25kg [55Ib] or less) were introduced to the
civilian market by companies that are not familiar to the
mapping community. Most of those small UAS are optimized
with flight control and management systems to make the
flight almost autonomous with the user responsible only for
initiating the flight. The pre-programmed flight management
system executes the flight and lands the UAS next to the
operator or any other designated landing spot. In other words,
you do not need (not from the FAA perspective and regula-
tions) a highly trained pilot to fly the UAS, as the concept and
technology are very close in experience to flying a radio-con-
trolled airplane or helicopter. Having said that, I would like
to mention that the FAA currently requires the presence of a
licensed pilot on the premises to fly a UAS.
The payload for such systems varies with the application
but most of them are able to carry an onboard imaging sensor,
such as a video camera, multispectral sensor, hyper-spectral
sensor or thermal infrared sensor and all necessary auxiliary
systems such as miniaturized GPS and inertial measurement
unit (IMU). There is even a miniaturized lidar, with limited
range, that can
be flown onboard
the UAS. Figure
2 shows a minia-
turized IMU that
can be used with
a UAS. Such a
miniature sys-
tem weighs only
49 grams (0.1
pounds) and fits
in a 36 x 49 x 25
mm (1.4 x 1.9 x 1
in.) box.
On the civilian side, there are already several activities
that involve the use of UAS for surveillance and reconnais-
sance purposes. The introduction of UAS to the mapping
community is different and is still in its infancy. The map-
ping community, before investing in this new technology, is
observing the slow introduction of this technology to un-
derstand it, verify its reliability, stand on its efficiency and
productivity, and, finally, figure out how it would fit in their
business model. Very few companies here in the U.S. have so
far invested in the technology.
Figure 1. NASA Ikhana UAS.
Figure 2. Miniaturized IMU (image
courtesy SBG systems).
