INTEGRATION OF UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE DATA WITH GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are successfully used in many different fields such as military, forest fire, archaeological sites, agricultural applications, traffic control, radiation monitoring, natural disasters, urban management etc. At the same time, UAVs are extremely important tools for achieving accurate and up-to-date information quickly and economically. Today, UAVs can stay in the air for up to about 3.5 hours, and during this time they can take in aerial images that can produce ortho-images of an area of about 15 square kilometers. All of these features make UAV the tool of professional land surveying and ortho-image production that is fast, accurate and easy to use. The most important basic component in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is geographical data. UAVs which produces this data quickly and accurately, are one of the most important data collection methods. In recent years, it has been utilized effectively from the production of ortho-images used as basic data in GIS. In this study, the data obtained from the UAV at the study area of Cumhuriyet University Campus (Sivas city, Turkey) were evaluated with the photogrammetric data evaluation software Pix4D and the Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and ortho-images were produced. By interpreting these products, geographical layers such as buildings, electric poles, roads and manholes related to the campus were created on the GIS environment and the infrastructure of the Campus Information System (CIS) was established. Thus, a inquirable and analysable GIS-based system has been created to contribute to the management and planning activities to be carried out on the campus. As a result, UAV photogrammetry is a fast and easy to get economic geographical data for GIS-based studies, and is a tool for updating these systems in efficient times to provide effective and productive results and updates to information systems.