Skip to main content
Publications | Persons | Institutes | Projects
[ report an error in this record ]basket (0): add | show Print this page

Surfzone monitoring using rotary wing unmanned aerial vehicles
Brouwer, R.; De Schipper, M.; Rynne, P.F.; Graham, F.; Reniers, A.J.H.M. (2015). Surfzone monitoring using rotary wing unmanned aerial vehicles. J. Atmos. Oceanic. Technol. 32(4): 855-863. https://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-14-00122.1
In: Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. American Meteorological Society: Boston, MA. ISSN 0739-0572; e-ISSN 1520-0426, more
Peer reviewed article  

Available in  Authors 

Keywords
    Monitoring
    Topographic features > Beach features > Surf zone
    Unmanned aerial vehicles

Authors  Top 
  • Brouwer, R., more
  • De Schipper, M.
  • Rynne, P.F.
  • Graham, F.
  • Reniers, A.J.H.M.

Abstract
    This study investigates the potential of rotary wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to monitor the surfzone. This paper shows that these UAVs are extremely flexible surveying platforms that can gather nearcontinuous moderate spatial resolution and high temporal resolution imagery from a fixed position high above a study site. The rotary wing UAVs used in this study can fly for ;12 min with a mean loiter radius of 1–3.5m and a mean loiter error of 0.75–4.5 m. These numbers depend on the environmental conditions, flying style, battery type, and vehicle type. The images obtained from the UAVs, and in combination with surveyed ground control points (GCPs), can be georectified to a pixel resolution between 0.01 and 1m, and a reprojection error—that is, the difference between the surveyed GPS location of a GCP and the location of the GCP obtained from the georectified image—of O(1 m). The flexibility of rotary wing UAVs provides moderate spatial resolution and high temporal resolution imagery, which are highly suitable to quickly obtain surfzone and beach characteristics in response to storms or for day-to-day beach safety information, as well as scientific pursuits of surfzone kinematics on different spatial and temporal scales, and dispersion and advection estimates of pollutants.

All data in the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) is subject to the VLIZ privacy policy Top | Authors