Fire Monitoring and Assessment Platform (FireMAP): Acquisition and Preprocessing of UAS Imagery for Further Analysis

Most wildlands in the US have evolved with fire and depend on periodic blazes. The Fire Monitoring and Assessment Platform (FireMAP) seeks to provide the capability to monitor the severity of wildland fires responsively, while maintaining safety and affordability. FireMAP is composed of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and software to process and geo-analyze imagery. The UAS will perform a post-fire flyover of the affected area and acquire imagery, which will be georeferenced and mosaicked to create a composite image. The software then analyzes the imagery, identifying the burn extent and severity. The objective of image acquisition and preprocessing research is to automate the process of removing camera lense distortion, georeferencing and mosaicking the imagery collected by the UAS. Research is currently being done to maintain accuracy of both the imagery metadata as well as UAS flight log data. FireMAP will utilize both the UAS flight log data and the image metadata for automation of image georeferencing. Automation of preprocessing and georeferencing allows for faster transformation of data collected through imagery into actionable knowledge that can be utilized by FireMAP users