CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

UAV (Unmanned Airborne Vehicle) high resolutiondigital image acquisition systems based onsmall format cameras provide a versatile alternativeto the solution of environmental monitoringand remote sensing problems. Through digitalimage processing these small format optical andmulti-spectral camera images can obtain orthomosaicsthat meet quality standards at a fractionof the cost of traditional heavier manned vehicleequipment. They also have higher availability,resolution and flexibility can also be obtainedwhen compared to satellite images. This paperpresents research and development undertaken toproduce a computational system that can automaticallyprocess optical and multi-spectral imagesobtained from digital cameras mounted on aUAV aircraft. The system acquires, rectifies, mosaicsand georeferences these images with minimumoperator assistance. Results prove thatthe process can almost be fully automated andthat the system can be operated by minimallytrained personnel. Processed images obtained bythe software can be used for pattern recognition,photo interpretation, photogrammetry, and otherremote sensing applications.