Plane Accuracy of Aerophotogrammetry without Image Control Points of DJI PHANTOM 4 RTK UAV

Abstract

The small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have good operability, low cost and high production efficiency in the low-altitude aerophotogrammetry. In this paper, the checkpoint coordinate data of low-altitude aerophotogrammetry from DJI PHANTOM 4 RTK UAV in the image-free controlled model are compared with the measured data of GNSS RTK. The results show that the maximum errors of the plane coordinates of checkpoints extracted by UAV were 0.067 m and 0.045 m in X-direction and Y-direction respectively and the plane mean square error (PMSE) was ± 0.051 m, which meet the rules of the national standard and industrial standard. Therefore, the low-altitude aerophotogrammetry of DJI PHANTOM 4 RTK UAV without the image control points can be effectively applied to large-scale surveying and mapping in small areas.