Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems - RPAS [ICAO, 2011], usually called drones, are an emerging technology presenting a huge potential for innovative research in territory management. These systems will revolutionize most of the environmental studies (e.g. population ecology, vegetation dynamics, ecosystem processes, etc.) that are improved by remote sensing data, overcoming satellite-based data that provide not easy repeatable information and only at regional/global scale (from about 50-100 km up to 10.000 km). RPAS or Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS1) history begun in 1916 (i.e. the Wright brothers HewittSperry Automatic airplane) and it has been mainly unfolded until today thanks to military applications [Colomina and Molina, 2014; Pappot and de Boer, 2015]. Nowadays, UAS based technology is rapidly developing in the industrial market and in civil applications for several kind of monitoring services (i.e. traffic monitoring, border surveillance, environmental monitoring, imaging and mapping, archaeology, search and rescue operations, etc.) [Valavanis and Vachtsevanos, 2015]. Moreover, the use of drones, in the global consumable market is continually growing due to the integration on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platforms of high performance processors, sensors and electronic devices with lower and lower power consumption. Mainly, light Remote Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPASs) are used in several application fields due to their low weight and low size.

Published: 2021-09-28