Aerial image acquisition and processing for remote sensing

UAV (Unmanned Airborne Vehicle) high reso-lution digital image acquisition systems based on small format cameras provide a versatile alterna-tive to the solution of environmental monitoring and remote sensing problems. Through digital image processing these small format optical and multi-spectral camera images can obtain ortho-mosaics that meet quality standards at a fraction of the cost of traditional heavier manned vehi-cle equipment. They also have higher availabil-ity, resolution and flexibility can also be obtained when compared to satellite images. This paper presents research and development undertaken to produce a computational system that can auto-matically process optical and multi-spectral im-ages obtained from digital cameras mounted on a UAV aircraft. The system acquires, rectifies, mo-saics and georeferences these images with min-imum operator assistance. Results prove that the process can almost be fully automated and that the system can be operated by minimally trained personnel. Processed images obtained by the software can be used for pattern recognition, photo interpretation, photogrammetry, and other remote sensing applications.