Photorealistic Simulation Approach for Verification of an Aerial Digital Photogrammetry System

Abstract

© 2023 IEEE.In this work, a photorealistic virtual simulator is developed to simulate the flight dynamics of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV - quadcopter drone) with a camera embedded, whose photographing process can be also emulated to gather image and flight data that can be further used to point cloud generation and 3D reconstruction as in digital photogrammetry process. The system is intended to simulate the UAV-based digital photogrammetry of large structures (industrial structures, small buildings, residences). To accomplish this goal, the mathematical modeling of the dynamics of a commercial-of-the-shelf drone was developed and a flight controller was designed and verified in Matlab. Finally, the simulator is verified, generating a descriptive point cloud of an inspection mission that is virtually simulated. The 3D reconstruction of the object of analysis was properly performed in the photorealistic environment.