Orthorectification of prisma images

Orthorectification is one of the most important satellite imagery pre-processing applications, as it allows to use data, for example, in geographic information systems, making the most of high or medium resolution. Since May 2020, PRISMA (PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa) mission, a project of the Italian Space Agency, has become fully accessible to the community. PRISMA satellite integrates a hyperspectral sensor and a medium-resolution panchromatic sensor. The products are currently available with a declared geolocation accuracy of 200 m, which ASI plans to increase to half pixel in the near future by introducing geometric treatment of the images with Ground Control Points (GCPs). However, the orthorectification of PRISMA images is not a proven and validated procedure, due to the uncertainty of satellite orbital and internal orientation data provided in the metadata file and to the lack of contributions on the subject in literature. In the present work, our contribution on possible strategies for the geometric treatment of PRISMA images is shown. The results obtained by applying the Rational Polynomial Coefficients (RPC) provided with some panchromatic images show coarse rototranslations. For this reason, a procedure was developed to restore conformity between RPCs and the panchromatic image. The best results in terms of accuracy were obtained with the rational polynomials using RPF approach, achieving residuals calculated on the Check Points (CP) in the order of one pixel, better than those supposed by ASI using GCPs. Probably even better results could be obtained with more rigorous information on RPCs or orbital and orientation parameters

UAV APPLICATION IN POST - SEISMIC ENVIRONMENT

Abstract. On April 6, 2009, an earthquake of 6.3 magnitude struck central Italy with its epicentre near L'Aquila, at 42.3502° N, 13.3762° E. The earthquake damaged 3000 to 11 000 buildings in the medieval city of L'Aquila. Several buildings totally collapsed, 308 people were killed. The post emergency phase till now is just at its beginning step. Conventional surveying techniques using high precision total stations, GNSS receivers and laser scanners for investigations on damaged buildings are always becoming more automated, accurate and operative and even much more fast. Even if these techniques represent instruments of extreme operability there are still many evident limits on their use, especially regarding the survey of both the roofs and the facades of tall buildings or dangerous places, typical on post earthquake situations. So using micro UAVs for surveying in such particular cases, many of these problems can be easily bypassed. In fact, the present work aims on experimenting using multi-rotor micro UAVs, that will allow high quality image capturing on roofs and facades of structures in the old city center of L'Aquila. To obtain actual stereoscopic acquisitions of buildings some conditions on the geometry of acquisition have to be observed, for this reason, taking as a guideline classic flight photogrammetric, a flight planning software was developed. Accurate planning for UAVs acquisitions is very important also considering the reduced autonomy of such vehicles. This can be a strategic point if we want to use UAVs for early damage assessment and also for post event reconstruction planning

Intensive archaeological survey at Piscina Torta: use of a low-cost RTK portable kit to materialise a UTM grid on the ground

We tested the use of a low-cost GPS RTK to set up a grid during the intensive archaeological survey of the Piscina Torta site, in the framework of the Salt and Power project of the University of Groningen. We also suggest not using a local grid but the WGS84 UTM grid and naming the single cells with the coordinates of one of its vertices. This would facilitate the use and exchange of the data (e.g. about the potsherds collected in the cell) among the scientific community

Assessment of dual frequency GNSS observations from a Xiaomi Mi 8 android smartphone and positioning performance analysis

On May 2018 the world’s first dual-frequency Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) smartphone produced by Xiaomi equipped with a Broadcom BCM47755 chip was launched. It is able to receive L1/E1/ and L5/E5 signals from GPS, Galileo, Beidou, and GLONASS (GLObal NAvigation Satellite System) satellites. The main aim of this work is to achieve the phone’s position by using multi-constellation, dual frequency pseudorange and carrier phase raw data collected from the smartphone. Furthermore, the availability of dual frequency raw data allows to assess the multipath performance of the device. The smartphone’s performance is compared with that of a geodetic receiver. The experiments were conducted in two different scenarios to test the smartphone under different multipath conditions. Smartphone measurements showed a lower C/N0 and higher multipath compared with those of the geodetic receiver. This produced negative effects on single-point positioning as showed by high root mean square error (RMS). The best positioning accuracy for single point was obtained with the E5 measurements with a DRMS (horizontal root mean square error) of 4.57 m. For E1/L1 frequency, the 2DRMS was 5.36 m. However, the Xiaomi Mi 8, thanks to the absence of the duty cycle, provided carrier phase measurements used for a static single frequency relative positioning with an achieved 2DRMS of 1.02 and 1.95 m in low and high multipath sites, respectively

Studio delle possibilità di utilizzo della costellazione Glonass nel suo stato

GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System) is a global position satellite system realized by ex- Urss at the same time with the United State’s one. The first launch of satellites went back to 12th October 1982, they completed constellation with 24 satellites in 1997. In the years Russia didn’t have economic force to maintain active the entire constellation. But in 2002 GLONASS relaunching started, that provides 18 satellites before 2007, and it will reach 24 satellites before 2010. The program provides the launch of three or two rockets a year, each one will bring to space two or three satellite. At present (15th September 2006) there are 15 operative GLONASS satellites. The aim of this work is to show the potentiality of the jointed use of GPS and GLONASS satellites by performing an adequate subdivision of the observations collected during a survey in the area of Rome using TOPCON receivers able to acquire data coming from both constellations

First considerations on post processing kinematic GNSS data during a geophysical oceanographic cruise

Differential GNSS positioning on vessels is of considerable interest in various fields of application as navigation aids, precision positioning for geophysical surveys or sampling purposes especially when high resolution bathymetric surveys are conducted. However ship positioning must be considered a kinematic survey with all the associated problems. The possibility of using high-precision differential GNSS receivers in navigation is of increasing interest, also due to the very recent availability of low-cost differential receivers that may soon replace classic navigation ones based on the less accurate point positioning technique. The availability of greater plano-altimetric accuracy, however, requires an increasingly better understanding of planimetric and altimetric reference systems. In particular, the results allow preliminary considerations on the congruence between terrestrial reference systems (which the GNSS survey can easily refer to) and marine reference systems (connected to National Tidegauge Network). In spite of the fluctuations due to the physiological continuous variation of the ship's attitude, GNSS plot faithfully followed the trend of the tidal variations and highlighted the shifts between GNSS plot and the tide gauges due to the different materialization of the relative reference systems

APPLICABIILITA’ DELL’APPROCCIO MULTICOSTELLATION CON L’AUSILIO DI SOFTWARE COMMERCIALI NELLA RETE UNIPA

Lo sviluppo dei sistemi di radio navigazione satellitare richiede lo studio di soluzioni nuove, in particolar modo per quanto riguarda l'integrazione di più sistemi satellitari. In numerosi lavori è stata studiata l'influenza che l'utilizzo congiunto dei sistemi satellitari GLONASS e GPS hanno in un rilievo topografico. Tuttavia, scopo di questo articolo scientifico non è tanto quello di valutare questa influenza, ma di dare un forte apporto allo sviluppo di un nuova metodologia, del tutto innovativa, denominata Multiconstellation. L'approccio Multiconstellation, come è noto in letteratura, è stato introdotto qualche anno or sono dai ricercatori dell'area Geomatica dell'Università La Sapienza di Roma; da allora sono stati compiuti alcuni lavori con tale approccio con sessioni limitata ad una durata di 30 minuti, su basi di lunghezza minima. Con questo nuovo metodo, modificando i files RINEX originali mediante l'utilizzo del software Multicon, è possibile raddoppiare il numero di basi linearmente indipendenti per sessione, dimezzando pertanto il numero di sessioni da utilizzare e quindi il tempo necessario per eseguire l'intero rilievo. Considerando che nella pratica professionale un topografo utilizza spesso strumenti noleggiati e software commerciali per le elaborazioni dei dati, dimezzare i tempi complessivi di un rilevo implica diminuire i costi complessivi dello stesso. Essendo quindi evidenti i vantaggi teorici di questo nuovo approccio rispetto a quello tradizionale, si è pensato di valutare la sua affidabilità in termini di precisioni raggiungibili con sessioni di durata più lunga di quelle utilizzate negli anni scorsi, cioè con durata temporale estesa tra le 3 e le 12 ore, considerando i dati provenienti dalla rete sperimentale gestita dal DICAM dell’Università di Palermo, mediante l’utilizzo dei principali software commerciali delle più prestigiose case produttrici mondiali (Leica LGO ver.8,0, Topcon Pinnacle ver 1.0, Topcon Tools ver. 8.0, Trimble Business Center)

Water level and volume estimations of the Albano and Nemi lakes (central Italy)

In April 2006 an airborne laser scanning (LIDAR) survey of the Albano and Nemi craters was carried out to obtain a high resolution digital terrain model (DTM) of the area. We have integrated the LIDAR survey of the craters and the recent bathymetry of the Albano lake to achieve a complete DTM, useful for morphological studies. In addition, with a GPS RTK survey (July 2007) we estimated the Albano and Nemi mean lake levels respectively at 288.16 m and 319.02 m (asl). Based on the integrated DTM and the newly estimated water level values, we evaluated about 21.7·106 m3 the water volume loss of the Albano lake from 1993 to 2007, with an average rate of about 1.6·106 m3/yr

GEOMATIC METHODOLOGIES FOR THE STUDY OF TEATRO MASSIMO IN PALERMO (ITALY)

This work illustrates the use of geomatics techniques for the documentation of Teatro Massimo in Palermo (Italy), one of the most important and big in Italy and in Europe. The theatre is characterized by a very complex structure and is realized also using innovative solution, studied at the time of the project specifically for this building; for example, an original system was realized for a natural air-conditioning system of the auditorium. Due to his complexity, the documentation of the Teatro Massimo requires studying specific survey solutions for the different parts of the building. In this paper, some studies on two of the most representative parts of the building were described. In particular, a 3D survey of the auditorium was carried out to obtain a first 3D model of the most important internal part; a very accurate monitoring of structure inside the dome of the theatre was also carried out. The survey of the auditorium was realized by a Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS), that has allowed the creation of a digital archive of point clouds, showing, however, the some level of criticality due to the complex shapes of building and of architectural details. The work has highlighted that specific strategy to optimize the number of acquisitions needed for the complete documentation of the auditorium. The monitoring of the structure inside the dome was carried out by topographic and photogrammetric techniques. The monitoring was aimed at measuring the displacements of the support devices connecting the iron structure of the dome. The monitoring has allowed to understand and to test the proper functionality of this complex system. Some tests were carried out also by a thermal camera to correlate the displacements of the support devices with the dilatations produced by steel thermal gradients