Drones at High-Altitude

Drones are being used extensively for scientific research these days, but there are only a few examples from high-elevation areas (e.g. 4,000 m and higher). The main challenge seems to be dilemma of battery power, flight time, and the thin air. This seems to more of an issues for multi-rotor drones as opposed to fixed-wing drones. The thinner air means that the UAV has to fly faster and is therefore less stable. In addition it can be difficult for a fixed-wing UAV to get enough lift for take-off - thus a stronger engine and/or larger wings would be helpful.

The basic workflow is simple: the UAV takes overlapping images that include their location based on internal GPS. Those are then converted in combination with GCPs into high-resolution DEMs (via SFM) and ortho-mosaics.

• Monitoring Tropical Debris Covered Glacier Dynamics from High Resolution Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photogrammetry, Cordillera Blanca, Peru (Wigmore and Mark, 2017).
• Seasonal surface velocities of a Himalayan glacier derived by automated correlation of unmanned aerial vehicle imagery (Kraaijenbrink et al. 2016). Some of their flights reached 5,900 m.
• USING UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES FOR GLACIER MONITORING IN THE HIMALAYAS (Immerzeel et al. 2016).
• High-resolution monitoring of Himalayan glacier dynamics using unmanned aerial vehicles (Immerzeel et al. 2014).