I have had the opportunity to review an excellent scholarly reference entitled, “Unmanned Vehicle Systems for Geomatics – Towards Robotic Mapping.” The text was edited by Costas Armenakis and Petros Patias. Costas is an Associate Professor of Geomatics Engineering at the Lassonde School of Engineering, York University, Toronto, Canada. Petros is the Director of the Laboratory of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing and ex-Chairman of the School of Rural and Surveying Engineering. The book was published by Whittles Publishing.
The book was inspired by the transformative technology of the small unmanned aerial vehicle systems for civilian applications which has lead to the democratization of spatial data collection, processing, product generation and services. In some cases, this ease of use and automation has not resulted in an awareness for the theoretical training that must accompany this transformation. This text provides an important opportunity for the novice to at least become aware, if not competent in a number of critical areas related to the use of small UAVs and other unmanned vehicles.
From the preface, “This book encapsulates a number of themes related to the use of unmanned vehicle systems for geomatics, including descriptions of platforms, types and controls, details of navigation systems and mapping sensors, methods for data acquisition and processing, best practices, emerging technologies and the challenges ahead.
I have not done an extensive search, but I think this text is as up-to-date and comprehensive on the subject as you will find. It would certainly be an excellent resource for professional training courses and a college level course on the subject.
A total of 12 authors contributed their expertise to the eight chapters on the topics noted above. The authors discuss not only UAVs, but robotic ground vehicles and unmanned marine surface vehicle systems.
If you don’t want to just push the buttons of the black boxes, but actually understand the theory, including the math of how unmanned vehicle systems work then this text would be a wise investment.
For the text click here.
