ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a detailed introduction to aquatic vegetation monitoring with unmanned aerial systems. It covers field deployments, ground truth sampling, hydraulic measurements, processing aerial imagery, and lab work for vegetation biometrics. The book also provides insight into the use of unmanned airborne vehicles (UAV) for fluvial applications. It reviews data collection and processing considerations, and explores examples of UAV use for riverine feature detection and mapping. The book describes the use of UAV platforms and sensors, as well as the foreseen potential of small UAV systems for monitoring oil and gas pipelines. It explores some of the smallaffordable platforms and sensors coming onto the market and some of their potential uses, advantages, and limitations. The book aims to investigate the effects of ground control points frequency and spatial distribution on Root Mean Square Error accuracy values.
