Development of rapid and low cost archaeological site mapping using photogrammetric technique

Abstract

In digital photogrammetry, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platform is a new technology that can be used to capture digital images for large scale mapping with accuracy down to centimeter level from various waypoints for archaeological site documentation. UAV is one of the great alternatives to replace piloted aircraft and with combination of non -metric camera, thus it can be applied for small area such as cultural heritage building/ archeological site area. With the recent technology of non-metric cameras, this camera is capable of producing high resolution digital images. This study investigates the application of UAV images for documentation and mapping of a simulated archaeological sites. An archaeological site simulation modelwith dimension of 2.4 m × 3.5 m is used in this study. The accuracy for mapping the archeological sites based on the UAV system is evaluated and analyzed by performing the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) derived from the differences of coordinates between reference value and the coordinates observed from photogrammetric output such as digital terrain model and orthophoto. In this application, a simulation model was used to simulate the archaeological site excavation. The results clearly demonstrate the potential and the capability of UAV and non-metric camera in providing the accuracy of centimetre level for this application. From this study, it can be concluded that the UAV and the photogrammetric technique procedure satisfied the needs of archaeological sites survey and documentation.