Top milestone achieved - first results of the mapKITE system published
The mapKITE consortium is proud to announce the achievement of one of the main milestones of the project: the publication of the first results of a mapKITE system operating in a real corridor mapping mission. These results have been published as an open-access article at the online journal Remote Sensing from the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), in the frame of the special issue Recent Trends in UAV Remote Sensing.
To access all the materials of the publication, click on this link: http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/9/1/60.
As a follow-up from the previous test campaign, the mapKITE team processed the acquired geo-data to derive orientation and calibration for the aerial images as well as point clouds from the corridor environment. Using ground check points as source for accuracy validation, the results yielded positive conclusions: mapKITE is able to achieve the same accuracy than UAS-only approaches, using the novel Kinematic Ground Control Points (KGCPs) and substantially minimizing the amount of Ground Control Points (GCPs). The current results are in line with previously anticipated results based in simulations.
MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) is an academic open-access publisher with headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. MDPI publishes 160 diverse peer-reviewed, scientific, open access, electronic journals. Their publishing activities are supported by more than 12,800 active scientists and academic editors on their journals' international editorial boards, including several Nobelists. More than 216,400 individual authors have already published with MDPI. MDPI.com receives more than 4.2 million monthly webpage views.
GeoNumerics (Castelldefels, Catalonia, Spain) is a research and development (R&D) intensive small-and-medium-enterprise (SME) company specialised in geomatics and accurate navigation. The mapKITE concept is an invention of GeoNumerics. GeoNumerics was awarded the “Innovative SME” seal by the Spanish “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad” (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness).
MapKITE is currently being developed by an international consortium within the frame of the project “mapKITE: EGNOS-GPS/GALILEO-based high-resolution terrestrial-aerial sensing system.“ The project is funded by the European Commission (EC) through the European Union (EU) “Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation,” supervised by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) on behalf of the EC, and coordinated by GeoNumerics. The mapKITE consortium includes ten organizations from five European countries and Brazil.