A LOW COST ROKKAKU KITE SETUP FOR AERIAL PHOTOGRAMMETRIC SYSTEM

Abstract. Orthogonally Projected Area (OPA) of a geographical feature has primarily been studied utilizing rather time consuming field based sampling techniques. Remote sensing on the contrary provides the ability to acquire large scale data at a snapshot of time and lets the OPA to be calculated conveniently and with reasonable accuracy. Unfortunately satellite based remote sensing provides data at high cost and limited spatial resolution for scientific studies focused at small areas such as micro lakes micro ecosystems, etc. More importantly, recent satellite data may not be readily available for a particular location. This paper describes a low cost photogrammetric system to measure the OPA of a small scale geographic feature such as a plot of land, micro lake or an archaeological site, etc. Fitted with a consumer grade digital imaging system, a Rokkaku kite aerial platform with stable flight characteristics is designed and fabricated for image acquisition. The data processing procedure involves automatic Ground Control Point (GCP) detection, intelligent target area shape determination with minimal human input. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) is built from scratch in MATLAB to allow the user to conveniently process the acquired data, archive and retrieve the results. Extensive on-field experimentation consists of multiple geographic features including flat land surfaces, buildings, undulating rural areas, and an irregular shaped micro lake, etc. Our results show that the proposed system is not only low cost, but provides a framework that is easy and fast to setup while maintaining the required constraints on the accuracy.