Measuring the area of cultivated land reclaimed from rural settlements using an unmanned aerial vehicle

doi:10.1007/s11442-019-1632-z

Abstract

Abstract:

Investigating and monitoring the area of cultivated land reclaimed from rural settlements is important to optimize rural land use and understand spatial patterns. Measuring cultivated land area is costly and inefficient, however, as this land use type is often widely dispersed and scattered. A new method is therefore explored in this study that utilizes a Phantom2 Vision + (P2V), one kind of Dajiang (DJI) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The method proposed here includes generating rural settlement images using a P2V UAV, subsequently correcting them using a camera lens model, matching them with geo-coded high resolution alternatives, mosaicking them, measuring the area of cultivated land reclaimed from rural settlements, evaluating measurement accuracy, and analyzing overall efficiency. The results of this study show that use of a P2V UAV is reasonable in price, less than 8000 yuan (RMB), and that this method is able to measure cultivated land area reclaimed from rural settlements with 99% accuracy. This method is therefore low cost, highly efficient, and low risk, as well as being easy to learn and use. This UAV-based approach is also likely to be easily popularized and be particularly useful both for application across plains and flats as well as over mountains and hills. The method proposed in this study is also likely to prove beneficial for monitoring and managing rural land use and future consolidation.

Key words: unmanned aerial vehicle, remote sensing, reclaimed cultivated land, rural settlements, image mosaic

Cunjian YANG, Guanghong XU, Hechao LI, Defei YANG, He HUANG, Jing NI, Xiao LI, Xiao XIANG. Measuring the area of cultivated land reclaimed from rural settlements using an unmanned aerial vehicle[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2019, 29(5): 846-860.

Figures/Tables 12

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Parameters	Values
UAV length	350 mm
Wing span	420 mm
Take-off and landing mode	Vertical
Maximum take-off weight	1,400 g
Maximum flight speed	15 m/s
Maximum ascending speed/descending speed	Ascending: 6 m/s; descending: 2 m/s
Maximum duration of flight	25 minutes
Power source	Electricity
Material	Plastics
Working environmental temperature	Between zero and 40℃
Outdoor communication distance	Between 500 m and 700 m
Controllable rotation range of the cloud platform	Between -90° and 0°
Precise angle control of the cloud platform	± 0.03°

Plot No.	Reference image	Mosaic P2V UAV image	Difference	Error（%）	Accuracy (%)
Plot 5	1,638.84	1,645.25	6.41	0.391	99.609
Plot 4	1,378.08	1,375.24	-2.84	-0.206	99.794
Plot 1	1,250.38	1,242.64	-7.74	-0.619	99.381
Plot 2	1,138.4	1,148.75	10.35	0.901	99.099
Plot 3	758.95	759.9	0.95	0.125	99.875
Total	6,164.65	6,171.78	7.13	0.116	99.884