Monitoring the Brazilian savanna with lidar and RGB sensors onboard remotely piloted aircraft systems

The Cerrado, the most biologically diverse savanna in the world, is threatened by anthropogenic activities, and requires development of effective environmental policies spanning local to global scales. Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) can dramatically reduce the costs and time of surveys and evaluation of these regions. The objective of this article is to demonstrate the potential of visual (RGB) and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensors on RPAS for physical characterization of landscapes in the Cerrado biome. Analyses on vegetation structure were performed, with the number of trees automatically counted. The average height of the trees obtained with the RGB sensor was significantly lower than the obtained by LIDAR, demonstrating the limitation of Structure from Motion data in representing the landscape with denser vegetation. Automatic counting of trees with LIDAR data were equal to 1825 on the whole study area, and 245 inside the ecological study area parcels. [register below to download full whitepaper]