The first automatic aerial photographing over Nishinoshima Island by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

 Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) carried out aerial photographing over Nishinoshima Island by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV*1) with cooperation of Ministry of Defense and Ogasawara Village on March 22nd. This is the first attempt of automatic photographing over isolated islands by a UAV in Japan. The UAV flew from Chichijima Island, 130 km far from Nishinoshima Island, took vertical photographs, and recorded its positions by a GNSS*2 receiver.

 The aerial photographs, ortho mosaic image, DEM (digital elevation model), topographic interpretation maps, and other related data have been published on the Internet, as with the previous photographing by the manned aerial vehicle Kunikaze III on December 4th, 17th, 2013, and February 16th, 2014.
 Though the photographing did not use camera and GNSS receiver for professional survey, we obtained enough results referring the formerly observed data by the Kunikaze III. GSI will try to use UAV to acquire geospatial information over isolated islands and hazard area.
 An outline of the measurements is provided below.

• Attachment 1: Diagram of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) flight path [PDF 661KB]
• Attachment 2: Aerial photographs around Nishinoshima Island [PDF 661KB]
• Attachment 3: comparison of four dates [PDF 661KB]
• Attachment 4: 3D-images around Nishinoshima [PDF 661KB]
• Attachment 5: Nishinoshima eruption eruption - Topographic interpretation map [PDF 661KB]

•   *1 UAV: An abbreviation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, referring to an aircraft that flies autonomously by means of radio control or pre-programming of coordinates, and is not boarded by any person.
•   *2 GNSS: An abbreviation of Global Navigation Satellite System, referring to satellites that emit radio waves for the purpose of positioning, and end-user positioning devices by receiving the radio waves.