Remotely piloted mobile mapping systems - Towards robotic mapping

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Remotely piloted mobile mapping systems are becoming the technological impetus for revolutionizing three dimensional geospatial data acquisition and 3D mapping and causing a paradigm shift in the field of geomatics. The ever increasing use of small and light-weight Unmanned Vehicle Systems (UVS) are changing the geomatics applications and creating new and innovative opportunities for measuring and modeling outdoor and indoor environments. UVS compliment, and in many cases replace, total stations and laser scanners, and operate as flexible mobile survey systems. Miniaturization technologies and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have radically reduced the size and weight of many components and electronic systems leading to the development of unmanned aerial and ground mapping systems of smaller scale and of lower cost.***However, ``lighter, smaller, simpler and cheaper'' does not mean simpler processing software systems. Actually, highly sophisticated processing is required to overcome the challenges of the unavoidably limited performance of small, light-weight platforms and acquisition systems. The proposed research program involves small mobile platforms and commercial off-the shelf navigation and mapping sensors. The objective is the development of low-cost, small remotely piloted aerial and ground mobile mapping systems for robotic outdoor and indoor 3D geometric, topological and thematic mapping. It focuses on the development of new and improved methods, algorithms and systems for 3D navigation and mapping in known and unknown unstructured and changing environments, on developing fast algorithms for rapid and real-time mapping, on path planning including obstacle sense detection and avoidance, on low altitude remote sensing for land cover mapping and precision agriculture and on the use of collaborative mobile platforms for navigation and mapping.***Developing know-how, technology, methods and algorithms in this fast emerging, cutting edge technological and economical field will have tremendous socio-economic impacts for Canada from emergency response to the management of natural resources, to monitor remote and Arctic areas to high-tech developments, to technology exports. HQP trained in this area will be the scientific and technological leaders of this area. It is anticipated that 1 PDF, 3 PhD, 3 MSc and at least 5 undergraduate students will be trained during the duration of this research program.**