• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.232-239
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• 2016

Recently, in order to increase the efficiency and mission success rate of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), the necessity for formation flights is increased. In general, GPS (Global Positioning System) is used to obtain the relative position of leader with respect to follower in formation flight. However, it can't be utilized in environment where GPS jamming may occur or communication is impossible. Therefore, in this study, monocular vision is used for measuring relative position. General PC-based vision processing systems has larger size than embedded systems and is hard to install on small vehicles. Thus FPGA-based processing board is used to make our system small and compact. The processing system is divided into two blocks, PL(Programmable Logic) and PS(Processing system). PL is consisted of many parallel logic arrays and it can handle large amount of data fast, and it is designed in hardware-wise. PS is consisted of conventional processing unit like ARM processor in hardware-wise and sequential processing algorithm is installed on it. Consequentially HW/SW co-designed FPGA system is used for processing input images and measuring a relative 3D position of the leader, and this system showed RMSE accuracy of 0.42 cm ~ 0.51 cm.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.37 no.5_1
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• pp.947-958
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• 2021

This study was conducted to provide basic data for crop monitoring by comparing and analyzing changes in reflectance and vegetation index by sensor of multi-spectral sensors mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles. For four types of unmanned aerial vehicle-mounted multispectral sensors, such as RedEdge-MX, S110 NIR, Sequioa, and P4M, on September 14 and September 15, 2020, aerial images were taken, once in the morning and in the afternoon, a total of 4 times, and reflectance and vegetation index were calculated and compared. In the case of reflectance, the time-series coefficient of variation of all sensors showed an average value of about 10% or more, indicating that there is a limit to its use. The coefficient of variation of the vegetation index by sensor for the crop test group showed an average value of 1.2 to 3.6% in the crop experimental sites with high vitality due to thick vegetation, showing variability within 5%. However, this was a higher value than the coefficient of variation on a clear day, and it is estimated that the weather conditions such as clouds were different in the morning and afternoon during the experiment period. It is thought that it is necessary to establish and implement a UAV flight plan. As a result of comparing the NDVI between the multi-spectral sensors of the unmanned aerial vehicle, in this experiment, it is thought that the RedEdeg-MX sensor can be used together without special correction of the NDVI value even if several sensors of the same type are used in a stable light environment. RedEdge-MX, P4M, and Sequioa sensors showed a linear relationship with each other, but supplementary experiments are needed to evaluate joint utilization through off-set correction between vegetation indices.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.155-160
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• 2018

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is used in various fields, such as land surveying, facility management, and disaster monitoring and restoration because it has low operational costs, fast data acquisition, and can generate a digital surface model (DSM). Recently, the UAV has been applied to process management in construction projects. Construction projects are widely distributed not only in urban areas but also in mountainous areas and rural areas where people are rarely in traffic or in vehicles. Projects range from a few hundred meters to several kilometers long. In order to perform a reconnaissance survey, a surveying method using a global positioning system (GPS) or a total station has mainly been used. However, these methods have a disadvantage in that a lot of time is required for data acquisition. This study's purpose is to evaluate the usability of a UAV DSM for surveying a construction area. Data was acquired using the UAV and a three-dimensional (3D) laser scanner, and the DSM of the construction site was created through data processing. The UAV DSM showed accuracy to within 30 cm based on the 3D laser scanner data, and a process comparison between the two work methods was able to present the usability of the UAV DSM in the field of construction surveying. Future utilization of the UAV DSM is expected to greatly improve the efficiency of work in construction projects.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.97-104
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• 2018

Recently, many studies have examined UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), which can replace and supplement existing surveying sensors, systems, and images. This study focused on the use of UAV images and assessed the possibility of utilization in areas where it is difficult to obtain GCPs (ground control points), such as disasters. Therefore, 3D (dimensional) pointcloud data were generated using UAV images and the absolute/relative accuracy of the generated model data using GCPs and without GCPs was assessed. The results showed the 3D shape pointcloud generated by UAV image matching was proven if the relative accuracy was set, regardless of whether GCPs were used or not; the quantitative measurement error rate was within 1%. Even if the absolute accuracy was low, the 3D shape pointcloud that had been post processed quickly was sufficient to be utilized when it is impossible to acquire GCPs or urgent analysis is required. In particular, the results can obtain quantitative measurements and meaningful data, such as the length and area, even in cases with the ground reference point surveying and post-process.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.44-53
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• 2020

In conjunction with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the unmanned aerial vehicle industry is being developed to a new paradigm by combining advanced technologies such as AI, Big Data and the IoT. Aeronautical developed countries such as the U.S. are focusing their efforts on the development of the safer unmanned aerial vehicles. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute, as part of the national R&D project in 2011, had succeeded in developing the first vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) UAS, called Smart-UAV. However, although the development technology of the VTOL UAS is possessed, developing and operating of the VTOL UAS for commercial or military use are limited. The type certification procedure of the VTOL UAS developed by domestic technology is stipulated in the Korean Aviation Safety Act, but the Korean VTOL UAS airworthiness standards (KAS) hsve not been established. Thus, this study investigated the development trends of the VTOL UAS in Korea and abroad and national certification systems and procedures, and benchmarked the special conditions for the VTOL aircraft, announced by the EASA on July 2, 2019, to establish standards for type certificate of the VTOL UAS in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.6_1
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• pp.973-985
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• 2019

In this paper, we propose a method to separate the ground and building areas and generate building models automatically through planarity analysis using UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) based point cloud. In this study, proposed method includes five steps. In the first step, the planes of the point cloud were extracted by analyzing the planarity of the input point cloud. In the second step, the extracted planes were analyzed to find a plane corresponding to the ground surface. Then, the points corresponding to the plane were removed from the point cloud. In the third step, we generate ortho-projected image from the point cloud ground surface removed. In the fourth step, the outline of each object was extracted from the ortho-projected image. Then, the non-building area was removed using the area, area / length ratio. Finally, the building's outer points were constructed using the building's ground height and the building's height. Then, 3D building models were created. In order to verify the proposed method, we used point clouds made using the UAV images. Through experiments, we confirmed that the 3D models of the building were generated automatically.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.182-194
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• 2017

Most of the drone (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) research in terms of traffic management involves detecting and tracking roads or vehicles. The purpose of analyzing image footage in the transportation sector is to overcome the limitations of the existing traffic data collection system (vehicle detectors, DSRC, etc.). With regards to this, drones are the good alternatives. However, due to limitation in their maximum flight time, they are appropriate to use as a complementary rather than replacing the existing collection system. Therefore, further research is needed for utilizing drones for transportation analysis purpose. Traffic problems often arise from one particular section or a point that expands to the whole road network and drones can be fully utilized to analyze these particular sections. Based on the study on the uses of traffic survey analysis, this study is conducted by extracting traffic flow parameters from video images(range 800~1000m) of highway unit segments that were taken by drones. In addition, video images were taken at a high altitude with the development of imaging technologies.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.6_3
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• pp.1837-1846
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• 2022

The annual increase in chemical accidents is causing damage to life and the environment due to the spread and residual of substances. Environmental damage investigation is more difficult to determine the geographical scope and timing than human damage investigation. Considering the reality that there is a lack of professional investigation personnel, it is urgent to develop an efficient quantitative evaluation method. In order to improve this situation, this paper conducted a chemical accidents investigation using unmanned aerial vehicles(UAV) equipped with various sensors. The damaged area was calculated by Ortho-image and strength of agreement was calculated using the normalized difference vegetation index image. As a result, the Cohen's Kappa coefficient was 0.649 (threshold 0.7). However, there is a limitation in that analysis has been performed based on the pixel of the normalized difference vegetation index. Therefore, there is a need for a chemical accident investigation plan that overcomes the limitations.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.67 no.4
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• pp.274-284
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• 2022

To use kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) as a fiber and livestock feed, a high-yielding variety needs to be identified. For this, accurate phenotyping of plant height is required for this breeding purpose due to the strong relationship between plant height and yield. Plant height can be estimated using RGB images from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV-RGB) and photogrammetry based on Structure from Motion (SfM) algorithms. In kenaf, accurate measurement of height is limited because kenaf stems have high flexibility and its height is easily affected by wind, growing up to 3 ~ 4 m. Therefore, we aimed to identify a method suitable for the accurate estimation of plant height of kenaf and investigate the feasibility of using the UAV-RGB-derived plant height map. Height estimation derived from UAV-RGB was improved using multi-point calibration against the five different wooden structures with known heights (30, 60, 90, 120, and 150 cm). Using the proposed method, we analyzed the variation in temporal height of 23 kenaf cultivars. Our results demontrated that the actual and estimated heights were reliably comparable with the coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.80 and a slope of 0.94. This method enabled the effective identification of cultivars with significantly different heights at each growth stages.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.5_1
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• pp.537-549
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• 2023

The distribution characteristics of tidal flat sediment components are used as an essential data for coastal environment analysis and environmental impact assessment. Therefore, a reliable classification map of surface sedimentary facies is essential. This study evaluated the applicability of regression kriging to generate a classification map of the sedimentary facies of tidal flats. For this aim, various factors such as the number of field survey data and remote sensing-based auxiliary data, the effect of regression models on regression kriging, and the comparison with other prediction methods (univariate kriging and regression analysis) on surface sedimentary facies classification were investigated. To evaluate the applicability of regression kriging, a case study using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) data was conducted on the Hwang-do tidal flat located at Anmyeon-do, Taean-gun, Korea. As a result of the case study, it was most important to secure an appropriate amount of field survey data and to use topographic elevation and channel density as auxiliary data to produce a reliable tidal flat surface sediment facies classification map. In addition, regression kriging, which can consider detailed characteristics of the sediment distributions using ultra-high resolution UAV data, had the best prediction performance compared to other prediction methods. It is expected that this result can be used as a guideline to produce the tidal flat surface sedimentary facies classification map.