On-site Demonstration of Topographic Surveying Techniques at Open-pit Mines using a Fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (Drone)

This study performed an on-site demonstration of the topographic surveying technique at a large-scale open-pit limestone mine in Korea using a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, Drone, SenseFly eBee). 288 sheets of aerial photos were taken by an automatic flight for 30 minutes under conditions of 300 m altitude and 12 m/s speed. Except for 37 aerial photos in which no keypoint was detected, 251 aerial photos were utilized for data processing including correction and matching, then an orthomosaic image and digital surface model with 7 cm grid spacing could be generated. A comparison of the X, Y, Z-coordinates of 4 ground control points measured by differential global positioning system and those determined by fixed-wing UAV photogrammetry revealed that the root mean squared errors were around 15 cm. Because the fixed-wing UAV has relatively longer flight time and larger coverage area than rotary-wing UAVs, it can be effectively utilized in large-scale open-pit mines as a topographic surveying tool.