Co-registration of multitemporal UAV image datasets for monitoring applications :a new approach

Abstract

In the last years we have witnessed a rapid development of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), especially for image collection. One of the advantages is the possibility to perform high resolution and repeated flights in a cheap way to detect changes over time. Thus, dynamic scenes can be monitored acquiring image blocks in different epochs in a flexible way. Anyway, most of UAVs are not able to provide accurate direct geo-referencing information, so image blocks from different epochs still need to be co-registered to efficiently detect changes. This task is mostly completed using GCPs (Ground Control Points), although this approach is time consuming as manual intervention is needed. This paper aims at investigating new techniques to automate the co-registration of image blocks without the use of GCPs, just relying on an image based co-registration (IBCR) approach. The image alignment is initially performed on a reference (anchor) epoch and the registration of the following (slave) epochs is performed including some (anchor) images from the reference epoch with fixed external orientation parameters. This allows constraining the Bundle Block Adjustment of the slave epoch to be consistent with the reference one. The study involved the use of 10 multi-temporal image block over a large building construction site, and spanning a time frame of 2 years. Different tests have been performed for the reference image choice with a manual approach and then evaluating the reached accuracy. The performed tests on the chosen test site have shown that the accuracy of the proposed methodology provides results comparable to the common GCPs registration approach.