Researching the accuracy of determining spatial coordinates through processing images from drones

Abstract

The authors present the results of numerical experiments aimed to determine the mean square error, which can be used to obtain the spatial coordinates of the object’s under study points through processing images obtained from UAVs using only on-Board global satellite and inertial navigation equipment on drones. At those experiments, aerial photography from the UAVs was modeled for mapping and solving the engineering task of creating a three-dimensional building (structure) model. A pair of images was simulated for the research. The results using the characteristics of the GNSS inertial solutions Trimble APX-15 UAV and Trimble APX-20 UAV are presented. The experiments show that at solving engineering tasks under conditions corresponding to an arbitrary case of aerial photography, in order to determinie the spatial coordinates with the mean square error not more than 15 mm, the same error of determining the linear elements of external orientation should be 2-5 mm, and the angular elements 10-20". This significantly exceeds the characteristics corresponding to the post-processing mode for the specified GNSS-inertial solutions. The authors show the effect of angular elements’ external orientation errors to resulting the mean square error of each coordinate and a possible approach to reducing it.