University of Tasmania, Australia

The TerraLuma project in the School of Geography and Environmental Studies develops unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for environmental remote sensing applications. UAVs offer an exciting new technique for ultra-high resolution remote sensing observations. This project aims to develop UAV capabilities, based on state-of-the-art sensors and image processing techniques. These novel environmental remote sensing tools are used to map and monitor natural ecosystems, agricultural areas, mine sites, and other environments at an unprecedented level of detail. In creating, testing and evaluating these tools, we fill a niche between field observations and full-scale airborne observations.

Up-to-date and accurate spatial data are of crucial importance for sustainable management of our ecosystems. Satellite imagery and aerial photography provide advanced and efficient means to map the environment and quantify environmental changes, however, the resolution of these datasets is too limited for many application. UAVs offer an exciting and novel opportunity to map the environment in greater detail than ever before. Technological advances in recent years have made it possible to develop UAVs for civilian and scientific applications. Our prototyping phase involved testing and developing a series of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to determine the most suitable airframes and sensors for the spatial scales at which we will operate. One of the unique aspects of our project is that we operate and integrate multiple sensors: visible, multispectral (infrared), thermal, and laser, to map and monitor different aspects of the environment in great spatial detail whenever required.

In summary, the three unique aspects of our UAVs are:

• highest spatial resolution imagery available (1 cm)
  

• fly on-demand at critical stages
  

• integration of multiple sensors imaging outside the visible range

In addition, we are developing software tools for processing the data and imagery collected by the UAVs and streamline information extraction and data delivery. We now have an operational system that has been tested on a range of applications, such as precision agriculture and viticulture, coastal erosion monitoring, vegetation mapping in natural environments such as saltmarshes and Antarctic moss beds, forestry, stock piles, and mine sites.

For more information see: http://www.terraluma.net

Lucieer, A, ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) remote sensing for hyper-spatial terrain mapping of Antarctic moss beds’, School of Geography & Environmental Studies Conference 2011, 28-29 June 2011, Hobart (2011)

Lucieer, A and Robinson, S* and Turner, DJ, ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Remote Sensing for Hyperspatial Terrain Mapping of Antarctic Moss Beds based on Structure from Motion (SfM) point clouds’, Proceedings of the 34th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE34), April 2011, Sydney (2011)

Members (External)

Dr Arko Lucieer (Team Leader): Arko.Lucieer@utas.edu.au

Darren Turner (pilot, chief engineer, and PhD student): Darren.Turner@utas.edu.au

Josh Kelcey (PhD student): Josh.Kelcey@utas.edu.au

Luke Wallace (PhD student): low@utas.edu.au

Stephen Harwin (PhD student): Stephen.Harwin@utas.edu.au

Tony Veness (senior technical officer):

Dr Christopher Watson (co-supervisor): Christopher.Watson@utas.edu.au

Dr Jon Osborn (co-supervisor): Jon.Osborn@utas.edu.au