Flight Height of UAV and Its Influence on the Precise Digital Elevation Model of Complex Terrain

Abstract

The application of lightweight Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has been increasingly common in 3D topographic surveys. Especially in the complex terrains such as open-pit mines, where the elevation is rapidly undulating, the UAV based mapping is more efficient, economic and safe compared to the conventional methods. However, one of the most important factors in UAV mapping of complex terrain is the flight altitude which needs to be seriously considered because of the safety and accuracy of generated DEMs. This paper aims to evaluate the influence of flight height on accuracy of DEMs generated for open-pit mines. For this purpose, the selected study area is a quarry with complex terrain located in the Northern Vietnam. The investigation was conducted with five flight heights of 50 m, 100 m, 150 m, 200 m, and 250 m. To assess the accuracy of resulting DEMs, 10 ground control points and 385 checkpoints measured by both GNSS/RTK and total station methods were used. The accuracy of DEM was assessed by using root-mean-square error (RMSE) in X, Y, Z, XY, and XYZ components. The result showed that the DEM models generated at the flight heights of less than 150 m have high accuracy, RMSEs on the 10 GCPs increased from 1.8 cm to 6.2 cm for vertical (Z), and from 2.6 cm to 6.3 cm for horizontal (XY), whereas RMSE on 385 checkpoints increases gradually from 0.05 m to 0.15 m for vertical (Z) when the height flight increased from 50 m to 250 m.