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Drones
Special Issues
Unconventional Drone-Based Surveying 2nd Edition
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Unconventional Drone-Based Surveying 2nd Edition

A special issue of Drones (ISSN 2504-446X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2024) | Viewed by 3117

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Arianna Pesci

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione di Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 6/2 Creti 12, I-40127 Bologna, Italy
Interests: terrestrial laser scanner; remote sensing; structure from motion photogrammetry; crustal deformation; geodesy ground deformation; time series; volcanology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Giordano Teza

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 6/2 Creti 12, I-40127 Bologna, Italy
Interests: remote sensing (terrestrial laser scanning and structure-from-motion) and application to landslide monitoring; cultural heritage; preservation and medical imaging; 3D modeling; image processing; thermal imaging; GNSS and applications to crustal kinematics; deep learning and applications to time series analysis and medical imaging
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Massimo Fabris

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering-ICEA, University of Padova, 35122 Padova, Italy
Interests: geomatics; digital aerial photogrammetry; digital surface models; deformations monitoring; 3D surveys; land subsidence
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The success of the MDPI Drones Special Issue “Unconventional Drone-Based Surveying” led us to propose a new Special Issue entitled “Unconventional Drone-Based Surveying 2nd Edition”, for which we are pleased to invite you to submit original contributions.

First, we must specify that in this Special Issue, the term "drone" refers to any unmanned object that can be used for surveying, thus encompassing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) (whether a boat or even a terrestrial vehicle), Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs), and even an element of a system in which two or more of these types of drones, or even of drones different types (e.g., UAVs and USVs), jointly operate.

This Special Issue aims to collect papers addressing all kinds of problems encountered in unconventional drone-based surveying. Given that any type of sensor can be considered, with no limits other than the condition that the operations must be performed safely (including, but not limited to, cameras for Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry (SfM); thermal infrared sensors; multispectral or hyperspectral sensors; compact LiDAR; microphones; and sonars), papers may adopt the aims of

  • providing new methods for data analysis, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses;
  • proposing new applications;
  • proposing new configurations of drones or systems of drones;
  • proposing new guidance systems and/or survey planning which, in compliance with current regulations, confer greater (or also total) autonomy onto the drone;
  • addressing issues related to drone behavior in challenging environments and/or challenging weather conditions;
  • studying the problems inherent in the use of swarms of drones (not necessarily of the same type) to perform a given mission or problems inherent in the use of one or more drones in environments where there are other drones operated by third parties or even completely autonomous drones;
  • other original miscellaneous approaches.

As a rule, only papers concerning the successful application of a technique or methodology in its final version will be published. However, papers devoted to problem analysis that are of interest to researchers and practitioners are also welcome. Contributions describing new methods for fast and low-cost observation and monitoring are particularly encouraged.

Papers concerning any type of new application of interest are welcome under the condition that the research is carried out in an unconventional manner. The areas of interest for these applications can vary from architecture to environmental, atmospheric, volcanic, geological, seismological, civil engineering and agricultural fields. Papers on laboratory experiments will also be considered if they fit the criteria listed above.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Remote Sensing.

Dr. Arianna Pesci
Dr. Giordano Teza
Dr. Massimo Fabris
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Drones is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • UAV/USV/UUV
  • structure-from-motion
  • LiDAR
  • thermal imaging
  • multispectral/hyperspectral imaging
  • acoustic sensors and sonars
  • autonomous drones for surveying
  • swarms of drones
  • operation in hard environments

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 5757 KiB  
Article
Photogrammetric Measurement of Grassland Fire Spread: Techniques and Challenges with Low-Cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
by Marián Marčiš, Marek Fraštia, Tibor Lieskovský, Martin Ambroz and Karol Mikula
Drones 2024, 8(7), 282; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones8070282 - 22 Jun 2024
Viewed by 425
Abstract
The spread of natural fires is a complex issue, as its mathematical modeling needs to consider many parameters. Therefore, the results of such modeling always need to be validated by comparison with experimental measurements under real-world conditions. Remote sensing with the support of [...] Read more.
The spread of natural fires is a complex issue, as its mathematical modeling needs to consider many parameters. Therefore, the results of such modeling always need to be validated by comparison with experimental measurements under real-world conditions. Remote sensing with the support of satellite or aerial sensors has long been used for this purpose. In this article, we focused on data collection with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which was used both for creating a digital surface model and for dynamic monitoring of the spread of controlled grassland fires in the visible spectrum. We subsequently tested the impact of various processing settings on the accuracy of the digital elevation model (DEM) and orthophotos, which are commonly used as a basis for analyzing fire spread. For the DEM generated from images taken during the final flight after the fire, deviations did not exceed 0.1 m compared to the reference model from LiDAR. Scale errors in the model with only approximal WGS84 exterior orientation parameters did not exceed a relative accuracy of 1:500, and possible deformations of the DEM up to 0.5 m in height had a minimal impact on determining the rate of fire spread, even with oblique images taken at an angle of 45°. The results of the experiments highlight the advantages of using low-cost SfM photogrammetry and provide an overview of potential issues encountered in measuring and performing photogrammetric processing of fire spread. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unconventional Drone-Based Surveying 2nd Edition)
26 pages, 14175 KiB  
Article
A Comparative Study of Multi-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with Spectral Sensors for Real-Time Turbidity Monitoring in the Coastal Environment
by Ha Linh Trinh, Hieu Trung Kieu, Hui Ying Pak, Dawn Sok Cheng Pang, Wai Wah Tham, Eugene Khoo and Adrian Wing-Keung Law
Drones 2024, 8(2), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones8020052 - 5 Feb 2024
Viewed by 1990
Abstract
Complex coastal environments pose unique logistical challenges when deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for real-time image acquisition during monitoring operations of marine water quality. One of the key challenges is the difficulty in synchronizing the images acquired by UAV spectral sensors and ground-truth [...] Read more.
Complex coastal environments pose unique logistical challenges when deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for real-time image acquisition during monitoring operations of marine water quality. One of the key challenges is the difficulty in synchronizing the images acquired by UAV spectral sensors and ground-truth in situ water quality measurements for calibration, due to a typical time delay between these two modes of data acquisition. This study investigates the logistics for the concurrent deployment of the UAV-borne spectral sensors and a sampling vessel for water quality measurements and the effects on the turbidity predictions due to the time delay between these two operations. The results show that minimizing the time delay can significantly enhance the efficiency of data acquisition and consequently improve the calibration process. In particular, the outcomes highlight notable improvements in the model’s predictive accuracy for turbidity distribution derived from UAV-borne spectral images. Furthermore, a comparative analysis based on a pilot study is conducted between two multirotor UAV configurations: the DJI M600 Pro with a hyperspectral camera and the DJI M300 RTK with a multispectral camera. The performance evaluation includes the deployment complexity, image processing productivity, and sensitivity to environmental noises. The DJI M300 RTK, equipped with a multispectral camera, is found to offer higher cost-effectiveness, faster setup times, and better endurance while yielding good image quality at the same time. It is therefore a more compelling choice for widespread industry adoption. Overall, the results from this study contribute to advancement in the deployment of UAVs for marine water quality monitoring. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unconventional Drone-Based Surveying 2nd Edition)
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