Print Email Facebook Twitter Surfzone monitoring using rotary wing unmanned aerial vehicles Title Surfzone monitoring using rotary wing unmanned aerial vehicles Author Brouwer, R.L. De Schipper, M.A. Rynne, P.F. Graham, F.J. Reniers, A.J.H.M. Macmahan, J.H. Faculty Civil Engineering and Geosciences Department Hydraulic Engineering Date 2015-04-30 Abstract This study investigates the potential of rotary wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to monitor the surfzone. This paper shows that these UAVs are extremely flexible surveying platforms that can gather nearcontinuous moderate spatial resolution and high temporal resolution imagery from a fixed position high above a study site. The rotary wing UAVs used in this study can fly for ;12 min with a mean loiter radius of 1–3.5m and a mean loiter error of 0.75–4.5 m. These numbers depend on the environmental conditions, flying style, battery type, and vehicle type. The images obtained from the UAVs, and in combination with surveyed ground control points (GCPs), can be georectified to a pixel resolution between 0.01 and 1m, and a reprojection error—that is, the difference between the surveyed GPS location of a GCP and the location of the GCP obtained from the georectified image—of O(1 m). The flexibility of rotary wing UAVs provides moderate spatial resolution and high temporal resolution imagery, which are highly suitable to quickly obtain surfzone and beach characteristics in response to storms or for day-to-day beach safety information, as well as scientific pursuits of surfzone kinematics on different spatial and temporal scales, and dispersion and advection estimates of pollutants. To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:51a3948d-8bb1-4a2f-bcc1-c4b0f29f6e47 Publisher American Meteorological Society Embargo date 2015-10-30 ISSN 0739-0572 Source Journal of atmospheric and oceanic technology, 32 (4), 2015 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights (c) 2015 American Meteorological Society Files PDF JTECH-D-14-00122.1.pdf 1.53 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:51a3948d-8bb1-4a2f-bcc1-c4b0f29f6e47/datastream/OBJ/view