Kolloquium Geoinformatik A low-cost mini-UAV laser scanning system-Kylin Cloud: design and performance

Mini-UAV laser scanning systems are receiving attractive attention for high-resolution earth observation applications. However, a compromise has to be determined between the costs, weights, and qualities of sensors because of limited payload and battery consumption of a mini-UAV (e.g., maximum payload < 5kg). Hence, a dilemma occurs to the price, accuracy, and weight of an IMU. To obtain a high quality and low-cost mini-UAV laser scanning system, this talk elaborates the design and performance a low cost mini-UAV laser scanning system—Kylin Cloud, consisting of cost-effective sensors: a MEMS-based IMU, a global shutter camera with wide angle lens, a 16-lines laser scanner, and a DJ MD 600 multi rotor UAV. On the one hand, the methods about the accurate states estimation of Kylin Cloud system and automated self-calibration of laser-IMU-camera are reported. On the other hand, the application studies of Kylin Cloud system are presented to evaluate its performance (e.g., the qualities of point clouds), showing a powerful means for typical applications, such as forest 3D mapping, power line corridor 3D mapping, and so on.