The Use of Micro-UAV to Monitor Active Landslide Scenarios

We present a procedure to use micro-UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) to perform photogrammetry survey and monitoring analysis in landslide scenarios. The employed methodology is mainly composed of two phases: the first one is the UAV mission planning and execution, while the latter is the picture elaboration and alignment. The UAV used during all tests here described has been developed for photographic applications. Thanks to its V shape, propellers do not fall within camera field during normal flight operation and the eight motors configuration ensures more reliability in urban areas uses than a classical quadcopter configuration. The processing of the acquired photos relies on both standard photogrammetry procedure as well as innovative methods for photo alignment derived from computer vision algorithms. Examples of application are also provided to show the results and the potential of this methodology in real landslide scenarios.