A UAV-based system for hybrid LiDAR and photogrammetry sensing

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An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. According to a recent market research report titled “UAV Drones Market by Type, Application, & Geography - Analysis & Forecast to 2020”, the global UAV drones market is expected to reach USD 5.59 Billion by 2020, a growth of 800% from 2015. Besides customized UAVs, such as US Army Global Hawk and Amazon Prime Air, being actively used or developed, commercial UAVs are becoming more and more accessible. With increased computational capacity, these UAVs can complete many tasks that used to require manned aircrafts, while only require a fraction of the cost to equip and operate. Research in using commercial UAVs for a variety of applications in both civilian and military fields will be the next round of innovation, of which the Canada should be a front-runner. The proposed funding will be used for equipping a UAV-based system for aerial sensing. The system contains both LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) and RGB image sensors, allowing it to capture high-resolution and colorized 3D point clouds of outdoor scenes. It will support a variety of research programs at Memorial University of Newfoundland, from developing novel aerial sensing technologies to applying aerial sensing to real-world problems. Examples include designing novel and autonomous algorithms for reconstructing 3D models for large outdoor sites (Dr. Gong), developing advanced methods for aerial visual surveillance (Drs. Shehata and Gong), conducting surveys of hard-to-access areas for environmental monitoring (Dr. Devillers), performing coastal erosion evaluation and visualization over time (Drs. Devillers and Gong), and deriving navigational techniques for collaborative operations of ground and aerial vehicles (Dr. Mann). Since the above research topics are highly related, the funding will also facilitate research collaboration among the aforementioned applicants.