ANALYSIS OF UAV IMAGE QUALITY USING EDGE ANALYSIS

Abstract

UAVs (Unmanned aerial Vehicles) can acquire images easily without large cost. For this reason, use of UAV is spreading to diverse fields such as orthoimages and DEM/DSM production. The spatial resolution of images is usually expressed as a GSD (Ground Sampling Distance). The GSD from UAV has higher performance than other platforms such as satellites and aircraft because it shoot at low altitude. However, blurring and noise may occur on UAV images due to the weather and the stability of UAV. However, since the GSD from UAV cannot sufficiently meet the spatial resolving power of the actual image system, a criterion for determining the spatial resolution of image is needed. Therefore we emphasize that the quality of the image needs to be analysed. Actual performance indicators such as GRD (Ground Resolved Distance) and NIIRS (National Image Interpretability Rating Scales), which can be measured through image analysis, are representative examples of image quality interpretation. It is possible to extract NIIRS form image quality related parameters such as MTF (Modulation Transfer Function), RER (Relative Edge Response) and SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio). In this paper, we aim to apply the Edge analysis method to UAV and to analyse the result. The analysis result showed that while GSD and NIIRS were highly dependent to imaging altitude, GRD and image sharpness showed optimal altitude ranges. The exact optimal range varied between images taken at different weather conditions. While we need a further study, this may indicate that edge analysis may provide an optimal operational altitude range suitable for the sensors.