UAV based brdf-measurements of agricultural surfaces with pfiffikus

Abstract

BRDF is a common problem in remote sensing and also in oblique photogrammetry. Common approaches of BRDF-measurement with a field goniometer are costly and rather cumbersome. UAV's may offer an interesting alternative by using a special flight pattern of oblique and converging images. The main part of this paper is the description of a photogrammetric workflow in order to determine the anisotropic reflection properties of a given surface. Due to the relatively low flying heights standard procedures from close range photogrammetry were adopted for outdoor usage. The photogrammetric processing delivered automatic and highly accurate orientation information with the aid of coded targets. The interior orientation of the consumer grade camera is more or less stable. The radiometrically corrected oblique images are converted into ortho photos. The azimuth and elevation angle of every point may then be computed. The calculated anisotropy of a winter wheat plot is shown. A system four diagonally-looking cameras (Four Vision) and an additional nadir looking camera is under development. The multi camera system especially designed for a Micro-UAV with a payload of min 1 kg. The system is composed of five industrial digital frame cameras (1.3 Mpix CCD-chips, 15 fp/s) with fixed lenses. Also special problems with the construction of a light weight housing of the multi camera solution are covered in the paper.