Aspects of Mission Planning for UAVs

Abstract

We can find several software applications for mission planning and execution of flight plans for UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) on the market. Some of them are fully free or very cheap, others are working like services on monthly price basis and few of them have desktop versions with perpetual license. The main question is which software is useful for photogrammetric purposes and which are the most essential parts when planning a flight mission. The paper lists important photogrammetric aspects like flight height, ground resolution, image overlap, flight patterns, and expected measurement accuracy by following an example of a mission plan and execution carried out by the UgCS program.