INTEGRATION OF A LOW-COST MULTISENSORY UAV SYSTEM FOR FOREST APPLICATION

Abstract. To integrate the multi-spectral imagery and laser scanning data for forest management, a low-cost multisensory UAV system, named Kylin Cloud, is introduced in this paper. The Kylin Cloud is composed several low-cost sensors (i.e., GNSS receiver, IMU, global shutter camera, multispectral camera, and laser scanner), providing the fusion of the imagery and laser scanning data for reliable forest inventory. Experiments were undertaken in a forest park in Wuhan. Results showed that the registration error of the multispectral Digital Orthophoto Map (DOM) and laser scanning data is about one pixel, demonstrating a high potential of the proposed low-cost system.