The Potential of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Mapping

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be used for mapping in the close range domain, combining aerial and terrestrial photogrammetry and as alternative for aerial mapping technologies in small scale areas. At the current state mainly lowcost UAVs are used in mapping projects with low budgets. However, in the last years low-cost UAVs reached a level of practical reliability and professionalism which allow the use of these systems as mapping platforms. UAV based mapping provides not only the required accuracy with respect to cadastral laws and policies as well as requirements for the generation of elevation models in small-scale areas such as gravel pits, UAVs are also competitive to other measurement technologies in terms of economic aspects. In the following an overview on various UAVs will be given and their classification with respect to mapping task will be introduced. In addition, a generic workflow for the photogrammetric UAV flight planning, image acquisition, quality control and data processing will be explained. Complementary to the workflow two applications will be presented which focus on the practicability of UAVs in cadastre applications and generation of elevation models of small-scale areas.