Dear Colleagues,

The continuous developments in direct geo-referencing (i.e., integrated global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) and inertial navigation systems (INS)) and remote sensing (i.e., passive and active imaging sensors in the visible and infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum – RGB/multi-spectral/hyperspectral cameras and laser scanning) are providing the professional geospatial community with ever-growing opportunities to generate accurate 3D information with rich sets of attributes. These advances are also coupled with improvements in the sensors’ performance, reduction in the associated cost, and miniaturization of such sensors. Aside from the sensing systems, we are also enjoying the emergence of promising platforms such as unmanned airborne vehicles (UAVs). UAVs equipped with consumer-grade imaging, ranging, and direct geo-referencing systems have proven to be a potential remote sensing platform that could satisfy the needs of a wide range of civilian applications. The advantages of UAV-based mapping can be attributed to the following facts: a) they can fly at lower elevation and slower speed than manned aircrafts, thus, providing high-quality spatial data; b) they can be cost-effectively stored and deployed, which make them optimal for rapid response applications; c) they are easy to use with minimal training requirements; d) they can provide repetitive mapping at higher frequency with minimal cost; and e) they are less affected by weather conditions (e.g., they can fly under cloud cover).

The aim of this Special Issue is to present the state-of-the-art research and development in the area of UAV-based mapping. We would like to invite contributions to the following topics (but it is not limited to them):

• Passive and/or active sensor integration for UAV-based mapping
• System calibration of multi-sensor UAV-based remote sensing
• Optimization of UAV payload for remote sensing purposes
• Direct geo-referencing of UAV systems
• UAVs-based applications (e.g., precision agriculture, geometric documentation of transportation corridors, infrastructure monitoring, crash scene documentation, etc.)
• Multi-sensor/multi-platform/temporal registration of UAV-based geospatial data
• UAV-based mapping in GNSS-denied environments
• Integration of UAV-based geospatial data with other remote sensing modalities
• Quality control of UAV-based mapping products
• 3D object detection and recognition from UAV-based geospatial products
• UAV-based hyperspectral remote sensing
• LiDAR-based UAV 3D mapping
• Dense point cloud generation from UAV-based imaging systems
• Interactive visualization of multi-sensor/multi-platform UAV-based geospatial data

Prof. Dr. Ayman F. Habib
Prof. Dr. Antonio Vettore
Dr. Andrea Masiero
Guest Editors

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• Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
• Unmanned aerial systems (UAS)
• UAV-based remote sensing
• Sensor integration
• System calibration
• Direct geo-referencing
• Laser scanning
• Automated aerial triangulation
• Dense matching
• Point cloud processing