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[1] During the summer of 2004, the front area of the Jakobshavn Isbrae was monitored using a geodetic-photogrammetric survey with temporarily coincident precise observations of local ocean tides in the Disko Bay close to Ilulissat. The geodetic and photogrammetric observations were conducted at the southern margin of the glacier front. The largest observed horizontal flow velocities are in the central part of the front with values up to 45 m/d. This is a factor of 2 greater than the average velocities at the front area observed in the last century. Our new observations confirm previous estimates of an acceleration of glacier flow during the last decade. The photogrammetric survey provided flow trajectories for 4000 surface points with a time resolution of 30 min. These flow trajectories were used to compare the vertical motion of the glacier with the observed tides. The existence of a free-floating glacier tongue in 2004 was confirmed by these data. However, it occupied only a small belt, of at most a few 100 m width, in the central part of the glacier front. Horizontal motion did not appear to depend on the tidal phase, unlike some of the fast-moving ice streams of West Antarctica.

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Uncooled thermal cameras are increasingly used in thermography applications due to their lower cost and size. However, there are two significant limiting constraints which must be taken into consideration in a radiometric calibration before the actual application: (i) temporal non‐uniformity (a temperature‐dependent drift problem); and (ii) spatial non‐uniformity (fixed‐pattern noise – FPN). Conventional temporal non‐uniformity corrections (NUC) take advantage of an internal reference source but such methods are not valid for sequential images when the focal‐plane array (FPA) temperature is changing rapidly. A novel shutterless correction method is proposed to stabilise the camera's response. Moreover, instead of implementing the spatial NUC first, multi‐point correction is leveraged to remove FPN after the temporal NUC. Finally, a Planck curve is applied to convert thermal image values into object temperatures. Experimental results show that the proposed method is more effective for images with rapidly changing FPA temperatures than conventional shutterless methods and traditional shutter‐based methods.

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Commission THS11 Unmanned Aerial Systems: The Roadmap from Research to Applications KEY WORDS: Unmanned aerial vehicle, 3D point cloud, LIDAR, thermal infrared camera, near infrared camera, RGB camera, building inspection ABSTRACT:Conventional building inspection of bridges, dams or large constructions in general is rather time consuming and often cost expensive due to traffic closures and the need of special heavy vehicles such as under-bridge inspection units or other large lifting platforms. In consideration that, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will be more reliable and efficient as well as less expensive and simpler to operate. The utilisation of UAVs as an assisting tool in building inspections is obviously. Furthermore, light-weight special sensors such as infrared and thermal cameras as well as laser scanner are available and predestined for usage on unmanned aircraft systems. Such a flexible low-cost system is realized in the ADFEX project with the goal of time-efficient object exploration, monitoring and damage detection. For this purpose, a fleet of UAVs, equipped with several sensors for navigation, obstacle avoidance and 3D object-data acquisition, has been developed and constructed. This contribution deals with the potential of UAV-based data in building inspection. Therefore, an overview of the ADFEX project, sensor specifications and requirements of building inspections in general are given. On the basis of results achieved in practical studies, the applicability and potential of the UAV system in building inspection will be presented and discussed.

ABSTRACT:The Project ADFEX (Adaptive Federative 3D Exploration of Multi Robot System) pursues the goal to develop a time-and cost-efficient system for exploration and monitoring task of unknown areas or buildings. A fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with appropriate sensors (laser scanner, RGB camera, near infrared camera, thermal camera) were designed and built. A typical operational scenario may include the exploration of the object or area of investigation by an UAV equipped with a laser scanning range finder to generate a rough point cloud in real time to provide an overview of the object on a ground station as well as an obstacle map. The data about the object enables the path planning for the robot fleet. Subsequently, the object will be captured by a RGB camera mounted on the second flying robot for the generation of a dense and accurate 3D point cloud by using of structure from motion techniques. In addition, the detailed image data serves as basis for a visual damage detection on the investigated building. This paper focuses on our experience with use of a low-cost light-weight Hokuyo laser scanner onboard an UAV. The hardware components for laser scanner based 3D point cloud acquisition are discussed, problems are demonstrated and analyzed, and a quantitative analysis of the accuracy potential is shown as well as in comparison with structure from motion-tools presented.

Airborne LiDAR bathymetry (ALB) requires a refraction correction on the basis of Snell’s law at the air-water interface and a speedof- light correction to be applied on the raw laser data in order to achieve a geometric accurate representation of the water bottom. Strictly speaking, this requires exact knowledge about the local water surface inclination. If this information is not available, certain simplifications have to be introduced in correction methods. Common correction methods assume either a horizontal or a locally tilted planar water surface as well as an infinitesimally small thin laser ray, thus neglecting effects caused by the finite laser pulse diameter penetrating a curved surface. In our simulation approach, the refraction of finite diameter laser pulses passing the air/water interface is modeled differentially in a strict manner. The simulation tool is able to predict wave induced coordinate errors which have to be expected due to the neglections made in common refraction correction methods. Moreover, wave pattern dependent correction terms were be derived from systematic portions of the errors revealed by the simulations. The goal of this paper is to experimentally validate the coordinate errors predicted by the simulation tool. For that purpose, airborne laser bathymetry data of a 12 by 50 meter open air wave pool were processed, and the results were compared to reference data of the empty pool acquired by terrestrial laser scanning. The comparison showed that the effects predicted in the numerical simulation are confirmed by the experimental validation.