Surveying archaeological sites and architectural monuments with aerial drone photos

Abstract

Exploring castles, ruins or the tracks of settlements with aerial photographs has long been a well-known process. Drones can make significant progress in this area. The operating cost of a robotic aircraft is at least one order of magnitude lower than that of the cheapest small manned aircraft. It is possible to take high resolution images with them when flying extremely low compared to manned airplanes. The overflight of the area surveyed is far more efficient than with small manned aircraft, as thanks to the extremely small turning radius of drones, 90-95% of flight time is utilized, while this value in the case of small aircraft is 50-60, or possibly 70%. Of course, these benefits will primarily apply when exploring small areas (about 10-20 km2). In the case of surveying large areas, other benefits of manned aircraft (such as load bearing capacity, flight time) come to the forefront against the limited capabilities of drones.