ABSTRACT
Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) are a disruptive new technology that allows on demand, high spatial, spectral, and radiometric resolution mapping applications for study areas up to a few square kilometers. sUAS applications are developing into a major academic and economic sector. Inherently, sUAS applications are local in nature given their small study areas and there is an increasing need in communities for mapping science literate sUAS practitioners who can convert data to actionable information. This is an opportunity for universities to develop sUAS mapping based programs to fulfil this workforce need. The issues involved in achieving these outcomes are regulations, sensor characteristics, study area terrain, sUAS type, computing resources, and image processing, all of which have to be factored into the development of effective sUAS applications. A series of incrementally increasing sUAS imaging experiments were conducted on the University of North Georgia’s (UNG) Gainesville Campus to develop land cover maps based on Geographic Object Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) techniques and to conduct thermal audits of buildings. This chapter describes the process by which UNG has used its campuses as a laboratory for developing sUAS mapping applications that are being integrated into academic programs, curricula, and research.
