Unconventional Drone-Based Surveying

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit manuscripts to the MDPI Drones Special Issue on “Unconventional Drone-based Surveying.” Unconventional contributions are requested in this Special Issue.

Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry (SfM) allows the detection of physical surfaces of interest in an extremely fast and simple way. There is a wide range of applications based on the use of drones for photogrammetric purposes, leading to the creation of dense and accurate point clouds representing the objects of interest. Typically, surface variations and change detections are based on the comparison of multi-temporal models or on the morphological analysis of the present state of the object checking for differences with respect to a known supposed regularity.

This Special Issue is supposed to collect and revise papers to face any problems encountered and solved in the use of SfM also outside a classical approach: 1) providing new methods for data analysis, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses; 2) studying possible unexpected systematic errors from data analysis due to digital camera specifications and/or the image distribution on the covered areas; 3) conceiving methods for error mitigations and their applications; 4) analyzing the impact of scale factor corrections on results in terms of surface variation reliability; 5) verifying the role of real ground sampling distance (GSD) in digital models resolution; 6) other original miscellaneous approaches. Generally, only papers concerning a successful application of a methodology in its final version are published. However, even papers devoted to problem analysis will be welcome in this Special Issue if they are of interest to researchers and practicioners.

In particular, the contributions describing new methods for fast and low-cost observation and monitoring are particularly encouraged.

Any type of application of interest for research and practice is welcome under the condition that it is carried out in an unconventinal way. The areas of interest for the applications can vary from architecture to environmental, volcanic, geological, seismological, civil engineering and agricultural fields, including, for example, the monitoring of the spatio-temporal evolution of unstable slopes or of the piezometric levels in aquifers to the use of drones in archeology, civil engineering, and agriculture.  Laboratory experiments are also accepted if they fit the points listed above.

Dr. Arianna Pesci
Dr. Giordano Teza
Prof. Dr. Massimo Fabris
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Drones is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.