UAV-based Augmented Monitoring - Real-time Georeferencing and Integration of Video Imagery with Virtual Globes

Over the last few years low-cost micro and mini UAV systems equipped with light-weight geosensors such as video cameras have started to appear on the market. These UAV systems are mostly instrumented with low quality INS/GPS sensors for position and attitude control. Over the same time period web-based interactive 3D geoinformation solutions have evolved into virtual globe technologies which have had a tremendous impact on the geospatial industry within just a few years. Up to now, UAVs and virtual globes have rarely been combined. However, the real-time integration of live or recorded video streams from airborne platforms into virtual globes opens up a wide range of new applications. Real-time infrastructure surveillance, forest fire monitoring, traffic monitoring or rapid to real-time mapping are only a few examples. Today, the use of virtual globes for mission critical applications is frequently hampered by the fact that the underlying base imagery data is often outdated and does no longer reflect the current situation. Hence the real-time integration of image data based on video or still frame cameras into virtual globes bears a great potential for dramatically increasing the benefits of 3D geoinformation solutions. This paper presents an approach to complement virtual globes with up-to-date or even live geospatial content captured from minior micro UAV platforms.