Draft White Paper

Validation of the QuestUAV PPK System

3cm in xy, 400ft, no GCPs, 100Ha, 25 flights

Nigel King1, Kerstin Traut2, Cameron Weeks3 & Ruairi Hardman4

1 2 3 4
Director QuestUAV, Data Analyst QuestUAV, Production Engineer QuestUAV & Manager QuestUAV

Glossary
DSM Digital Surface Model
GCP Ground Control Point
GIS Geo-Information System
GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System
GPS Global Positioning System
GSD Ground Sampling Distance
OS Ordnance Survey
PPK Post Processing Kinematic
RTK Real Time Kinematic
UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Introduction
The new QuestUAV Post-Processing Kinematic (PPK) drone combines high-resolution
aerial photography with high-accuracy topographic data. A dual band GPS/GLONASS
receiver on board the PPK drone allows cm-level position referencing of
orthomosaics and 3D models without the need on physical Ground Control Points
(GCPs). This saves hours of mission planning and setup time, physically measuring
location points and walking the survey site for placement.

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 Draft White Paper

All GNSS positioning data are stored on board the QuestUAV PPK system, which
eliminates the need for a real-time data link with a fixed reference station while still
guaranteeing RTK cm-level position accuracy. Camera locations are corrected after
the flight during the post-processing phase, when GNSS receiver data is combined
with base station data to calculate the exact position of each camera exposure. The
corrected image positions are directly added to the image EXIF and can be imported
to photogrammetric software packages such as Pix4Dmapper or Agisoft Photoscan.

Objectives
The objective of this whitepaper is to validate the spatial accuracy (precision) of the
new PPK enabled QuestUAV-200 series aircraft on the basis of independently
measured verification points (GCPs) and repeated aerial surveys of a test site in the
UK.

Claims
The authors claim the following accuracies using the QuestUAV PPK system without
the use of ground control points on the test area, (subject to final validation by an
independent, qualified survey authority).

X Y Z
QuestUAV PPK Accuracies 3 cm 3 cm 10 cm

Study Area
The test site is located on the
North East coast of England
and covers 100ha of
agricultural land, coastal dunes
and beach. By being very close
to the North Sea weather
conditions are windy and
changeable, which allows to
perform stress tests for both
the QuestUAV aircraft and
image data quality.

Figure 1: Test site at Low Hauxley in Northeast England

including the location of reference points (yellow dots).

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 Draft White Paper

Equipment
The QuestUAV-200 PPK aircraft is equipped with a dual-frequency L1/L2 receiver
tracking both GPS and GLONASS signals. 132 hardware channels allow to
simultaneously track all visible GPS/GLONASS satellites. In parallel the receiver
records the shutter events of the camera
and logs the information during flight on
an on-board SD card.
The sensor on board the Q-200 PPK
drone is the Sony A6000 camera with a
16mm wide angle lens providing a
nominal Ground Sampling Distance
(GSD) of 2.9cm at 400ft.
The aircraft is launched with the
standard QuestUAV tripod launch line
and can be landed via parachute or belly Figure 2: Parachute landing of the Q-200 PPK
landing. aircraft.

Methodology
The accuracy of the QuestUAV PPK system is validated by comparing the results of
repeated aerial surveys with precisely measured verification points (GCPs). The
verification workflow includes the following steps:

 Marking verification points on the ground

1 Reference Data
Reference Base
2 
Station
3 Aerial Surveys
4 Post-processing
5 Statistics
 Measuring verification points by an independent surveying
company
Setup of a reference base station
 Repeated aerial surveys over the test site with the
QuestUAV-200 PPK drone
 Post-processing of camera locations and image processing
 Extraction of target points and statistics

Reference Data

A total of 40 target points were distributed over the 100 ha test site and measured
by an independent surveying company. The majority of the points were placed on
tarmac and permanent structures such as rocks and stable stone walls in order to
avoid any movements for the duration of the accuracy study.

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All points were measured independently in two

separate runs with a double-frequency
GPS/GLONASS receiver taking RTK corrections
from a mobile base station. The base station
was set up using the baselines of six reference
stations of the British Ordnance Survey. The
ground survey produced a horizontal accuracy
of 4mm and a vertical accuracy of 10mm.
By using yellow marker boards target points
are clearly visible in the aerial images. The
target points are the basis for assessing the
spatial accuracy of orthomosaic and Digital
Elevation Model (DEM).

Figure 3: Surveyor measuring the

reference points on the ground.

Reference Base Station

The PPK workflow does not need a real-time data link with a base station during a
flight. However, GNSS information has to be recorded by a base station parallel to a
flight in order to allow for positioning corrections later during the post-processing
phase. In the UK, publicly available GNSS recordings taken by the Ordnance Survey
are only available at a 30 second interval. As the QuestUAV PPK system requires one
second correction data, the QuestUAV team set up their own base station close to
the test site recording GNSS correction data during the flights.

Aerial Survey

The test site was flown with the QuestUAV-200 PPK aircraft repeatedly over a one
month period while testing different flight and sensor settings, including:

 Flight altitudes:
300ft and 400ft
 Image overlap:
69m/60m/53m lag distance
 Flight path:
Parallel lags/ perpendicular lags
 Camera settings:
Auto/ aperture priority/ shutter
priority/ manual
 Camera lenses: Figure 4: Ready for takeoff. Launch setup for the Q-
200 PPK aircraft.
16mm wide angle lens / 35mm
long lens

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 Draft White Paper

A total of 25 flights were completed from August 8 to September 5 covering

different weather and light conditions. Half of the flights were carried out in sunny
weather while the other half was flown in overcast and rainy conditions. Wind
speeds were high for the majority of the flights with up to 35kts at height. During the
flight hours there was no significant geomagnetic activity recorded.

Post-Processing

After flight camera positions were corrected by combining GNSS recordings of the
aircraft with the corresponding information of the reference base station on the
ground, replacing the positions embedded in the images (EXIF data) with more
precise cm-level RTK values.
Photogrammetric processing was completed with the Agisoft PhotoScan software,
including the generation of orthomosaic and digital elevation model and their export
as GeoTiff files.

Figure 5: Orthomosaic (left) and DSM (right) of the test site generated from a flight with the Q-200
PPK aircraft.

Statistics

Data analysis was performed inside the open-source Geo-Information System (GIS)
software QGIS. For each flight orthomosaic and DSM were imported into QGIS and
the 3D image coordinates of the target points extracted. The image coordinates
were compared with the coordinates measured during the ground survey and their
accuracies were determined by using the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) as
statistical measure. The RMSE is the standard error measure to estimate geo-spatial
precision. It represents the sample standard deviation of the differences between
the coordinates measured in flight and the observed coordinates during the ground
survey.

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Figure 6: Identifying target points in the orthomosaic (left) and comparing their position with the true
location of the points as surveyed on the ground.

Results
During a workflow optimization process of 10 of the 25 flights, optimal camera
settings and flight parameters were tested in different light and weather conditions.
Best results were achieved with the Sony A6000 camera and the 16mm wide angle.
We further improved results by using a manual configuration of the camera, fixed
aperture and fixed ISO, dependent on light and weather conditions.
After the optimization process the actual accuracy assessment was carried out on
the basis of 15 flights and processed without any ground control, but using 40 check
points to confirm accuracies. The table below summarizes the results of the
validation:

Table 1: Accuracy assessment on the basis of 15 flights with 40 check points each (ground reference).

X (m) Y (m) Z (m)

Mean Error 0.012 -0.006 0.087
Standard Deviation 0.024 0.028 0.031
RMSE 0.032 0.029 0.118
RMSE XY 0.044
RMSE XYZ 0.130

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Conclusions
Results show that the accuracies of the QuestUAV PPK system are 1 x GSD (planar)
and 4 x GSD (vertical) without the use of any ground control. The system was stress-
tested in real-life scenarios, including challenging coastal weather conditions and
non-ideal light conditions. System performance was consistent over the whole test
site (100ha). Geomagnetic activity was low throughout all flights of our test series.
However, geomagnetic activity should not be neglected when looking at the
performance of a GNSS receiver. When flying a PPK system during a geomagnetic
storm event (Kp-index >5) accuracy values might degrade.
Our test series have shown that the new QuestUAV PPK aircraft is a robust and
reliable system for high accuracy aerial surveys without the need of physical Ground
Control Points. Our PPK workflow allows to easily combine high-resolution aerial
images with high-precision GNSS data during the post-processing phase and to
create high-quality orthomosaics and digital surface models.

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