Radiometric quality assessment of images acquired by UAV's in various lighting and weather conditions

In recent years, the study of using images acquired with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in photogrammetry has been constantly and steadily developing. Due to the lower costs of UAV photogrammetry flight missions as compared to traditional photogrammetric flights, they are often employed in various photogrammetric and remote sensing products. In this paper, a new method of radiometric quality assessment of digital images acquired from low altitudes is presented. The method has been devised based on an analysis of statistical values of several thousand of images acquired from low altitudes and traditional digital aerial photographs acquired in different lighting and weather conditions. As a result of the studies, an objective quality index for images acquired from low altitudes was devised, along with value ranges. This index allows to classify images as being of good, medium, poor, or very poor radiometric quality. Such classification, in turn, allows for identifying the a priori error of the data processed, and thus assessing whether a flight mission should be repeated and whether the results can be expected to be of acceptable quality. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.