AOS RTK
Topics: drones, positioning systems, differential GPS
Supervision: Oliver Bimber, Rakesh John Amala Arokia Nathan
Contact: oliver.bimber@jku.at
Type: BSc Practicum, BSc Thesis
Airborne Optical Sectioning (AOS) is a wide synthetic-aperture imaging technique that employs manned or unmanned aircraft, to sample images within large (synthetic aperture) areas from above occluded volumes, such as forests. Based on the poses of the aircraft during capturing, these images are computationally combined to integral images by light-field technology. These integral images suppress strong occlusion and reveal targets that remain hidden in single recordings.
AOS supports DJI drones through a DJI Mobile SDK implementation on DJI smart controllers and smart phones being used with DJI remote controllers. These drones are currently operated through conventional GPS positioning with limited precision. Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) uses additional base stations or virtual reference networks (VRN) to improve GPS precision. This project will investigate if RTK together with the Austrian Positioning Service (APOS) can improve AOS in quality and/or speed. On the drone, a dedicated RTK module will be used. Position corrections are then received online through the APOS service. The DJI Mobile SDK 5 supports RTK and VRN.
Many researchers and students have contributed to JKU’s innovative AOS framework to explore novel solutions as search and rescue, wildlife observation, and wildfire detection. Several high-impact publications in Nature and Science have covered our scientific findings. See https://github.com/JKU-ICG/AOS/, opens an external URL in a new window
More details on APOS:
More details on the Mobile DJI AOS implementation: