[Elphel-support] elphel camera for remote sensing package

[Jo Whetten]

I am investigating different remote sensing packages for UAVs and have yet to find one that suits the needs that I envision. Many people are taking small digital cameras (GoPro and other similar cameras) and strapping them onto UAVs and flying them around and mapping the ground, which is fantastic, but none of these cameras (as far as I can tell) is generating images that can be standardized to each other or to any specific standard in general. It would be nice to have an incident light meter on the UAV that is measuring incident light and transmitting this incident light reading to the cameras so that they have a standard from which to reference, this way actual reflectance of objects on the ground could be calculated. Also, there are many instances where the dynamic range of the image sensor is not great enough to measure all areas of the scene, so if an array of cameras could capture the scene at different exposure values, these images could be
 combined in post to generate a floating-point image for scientific purposes, and an HDR composited image for human viewing of the terrain.

I have attached a conceptual image of what the array could look like with both Infrared and visible spectrum sensors, even having one camera that is incident light referenced would be a huge leap forward from where things are now.

Is a package like this something that Elphel is considering or might consider in the future? Miniaturization of current components would be required in order to fit an array of even three cameras in most current electric RC based UAVs that are available. I think there is a good market for a robust and open remote sensing package for UAVs. Just look at how well 3dRobotics is doing with their ardupilot boards. One of the most discussed topics on the forums is integrating cameras into the different aircraft platforms, and how frustrating this is.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read through this email.

John Whetten
Lehi, UT
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