Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) remote sensing for hyper-spatial terrain mapping of Antarctic moss beds

This study is the first to use an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for mapping moss beds in Antarctica. Mosses can be used as indicators for the regional effects of climate change. Mapping and monitoring their extent and health is therefore important. UAV aerial photography provides ultra-high resolution spatial data for this purpose. The aim of this study is to use a novel computer vision technique, known as Structure from Motion(SfM) to generate a detailed 3D point cloud of the terrain from overlapping UAV photography.