Pteryx UAV

Pteryx UAV, a civilian UAV for aerial photography and photomapping with roll-stabilised camera head. Note this time the camera is mounted sideways for oblique photography.

Pteryx UAV[1] is a Polish Miniature UAV designed for civilian use, manufactured and sold by TriggerComposites.[2] The machine can be classified both as flying RC model and pre-programmed vehicle. It has received a medal for innovative design in the category of micro-enterprises of the Podkarpacie region: Innowator Podkarpacia 2010.[3][4]

Origin

It uses a custom derivation of FLEXIPILOT, designed by AerialRobotics engineering group[5] for photomapping purposes and civilian use in general.

Avionics and flying platform are designed from ground-up with the idea of having full operational capability without using any active transmitter nor a groundstation. If there was transmission system operating possibly at powers around 500 mW ÷ 5 W (depending on system and frequency band), the UAV would require special permissions from the users, varying greatly from country to country.

Capabilities

Digital Surface Model of motorway interchange construction site
Bezmiechowa airfield 3D Digital Surface Model
4.5km2 ortophotomap extracted from data collected during 1h flight

(example: Bezmiechowa 3D model[6])

(example: Motorway construction site mapping mission[7]) often requiring georeferencing of the data obtained

The camera mount contains either pre-installed compact digital camera, or is left for the user for integration.

The camera can be mounted down-looking (nadir photography) or side-looking (oblique photography).

The whole head can be also tilted in flight using RC transmitter, while reducing stabilization travel to one of the sides.

Features

Its features among miniature (sub-5 kg TOW) civilian UAVs include roll-stabilised camera head, fully integrated parachute and Rotary Mission Selector. Key design requirements included:

Precision

(manufacturer's data)

The aircraft provides positions of the photos taken, more than 8000 events can be recorded. Ground-projected positions include the following errors:

Those errors nullify themselves during stitching and ortorectification of the images. The use of a roll-stabilised head increases useful area coverage (reducing distortion at map edges) and improving stitch quality inside during turbulent weather. In order to obtain georeferenced maps, it is necessary to provide positions of the object on-site or simply viewing the stitched image in Google earth (accepting occasional 50m position error vs true coordinates, but usually correct dimensions).

Typical orthophotomap precision (mean reprojection errors):

The precision of an orthophotomap created with professional processing chain depends on Ground Sampling Distance or Ground Pixel Size (variable 5 cm/pixel to 20 cm/pixel depending on flight altitude). With Ground Control Points provided, horizontal accuracy of the map as a whole improves from a few meters to GSD (5 cm to 20 cm). Vertical accuracy of produced DSM (always internally generated for orthorectification) is in the order of 3 GSD, i.e. 15 cm to 60 cm. Regardless of the use of Ground Control Points, the map is self-consistent geometrically within 1 GSD.

Data processing strategies

Several data processing approaches are possible depending on application:

System components

User's equipment

General characteristics

Masses:

Dimensions:[8][9]

V speeds:

Flight altitude:

Handling:

References

  1. http://www.pteryx.eu
  2. Trigger Composites
  3. http://www.tvp.pl/rzeszow/edukacyjne/innowacyjne-podkarpackie/wideo/712/3549204 Polish TVP educational clip
  4. diplomma
  5. AerialRobotics
  6. Bezmiechowa 3D digital elevation model (AerialRobotics and CMP SfM Web Service)
  7. Motorway mapping mission (YouTube video)
  8. http://www.aerialrobotics.pl/pteryx/pteryx-dimensions.pdf
  9. http://www.aerialrobotics.pl/pteryx/pteryx-camhead-dimensions.pdf

External links