STUDY OF LEVER-ARM EFFECT USING EMBEDDED PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND ON-BOARD GPS RECEIVER ON UAV FOR METROLOGICAL MAPPING PURPOSE AND PROPOSAL OF A FREE GROUND MEASUREMENTS CALIBRATION PROCEDURE

Abstract

Nowadays, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) on-board photogrammetry knows a significant growth due to the democratization of using drones in the civilian sector. Also, due to changes in regulations laws governing the rules of inclusion of a UAV in the airspace which become suitable for the development of professional activities. Fields of application of photogrammetry are diverse, for instance: architecture, geology, archaeology, mapping, industrial metrology, etc. Our research concerns the latter area. <i>Vinci-Construction- Terrassement</i> is a private company specialized in public earthworks that uses UAVs for metrology applications. This article deals with maximum accuracy one can achieve with a coupled camera and GPS receiver system for direct-georeferencing of Digital Surface Models (DSMs) without relying on Ground Control Points (GCPs) measurements. This article focuses specially on the lever-arm calibration part. This proposed calibration method is based on two steps: a first step involves the proper calibration for each sensor, i.e. to determine the position of the optical center of the camera and the GPS antenna phase center in a local coordinate system relative to the sensor. A second step concerns a 3<i>d</i> modeling of the UAV with embedded sensors through a photogrammetric acquisition. Processing this acquisition allows to determine the value of the lever-arm offset without using GCPs.