COURSE UNIT TITLE

: USES AND APPLICATIONS OF UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES (UAV) IN EARTH SCIENCES

Description of Individual Course Units

Course Unit Code Course Unit Title Type Of Course D U L ECTS
MTS 3044 USES AND APPLICATIONS OF UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES (UAV) IN EARTH SCIENCES ELECTIVE 2 0 0 3

Offered By

Faculty of Engineering

Level of Course Unit

First Cycle Programmes (Bachelor's Degree)

Course Coordinator

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MEHMET AKBULUT

Offered to

Industrial Engineering
Mechanical Engineering (Evening)
Mechanical Engineering
Geophysical Engineering
Mining Engineering
Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
Environmental Engineering
Civil Engineering
Civil Engineering (Evening)
Geological Engineering

Course Objective

To increase the engineering skills of engineering students on the scientific framework by introducing the use of current technologies such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and to train competent engineers for meeting current requirements of relevant sector.

Learning Outcomes of the Course Unit

1   To be able to analyse unmanned aerial platforms from a utilitarian point of view.
2   To be able to have information about the latest UAV applications used in the world and in Türkiye.
3   To evaluate occupational risk prevention and environmental protection situations according to the relevant legislation on UAV processes to ensure safe environments.
4   To learn the processes related to entrepreneurial culture and professional enterprise necessary to create a new business line based on UAV.
5   To be able to realize different professional applications of UAVs in engineering applications, such as inspection, planning and post-disaster situations.
6   To be able to solve application needs that cannot be met by conventional methods with sustainable methods.
7   To be able to learn spatial data collection technology with the basic principles of photogrammetry and to manage data sources with Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
8   To be able to design special tasks with land usage planning with GIS and to be able to prepare a deliverable product with final evaluations using specialized software options.

Mode of Delivery

Face -to- Face

Prerequisites and Co-requisites

None

Recomended Optional Programme Components

None

Course Contents

Week Subject Description
1 General introduction to the course and the main and auxiliary sources to be utilised, presentation of the course materials and course presentations.
2 Presentation of the concepts of civil aviation and unmanned aerial vehicles, emphasising the relationship with earth science.
3 Basic methods used in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, software and the contents of these concepts.
4 Geoscientific problems to be solved with unmanned aerial vehicles and acquisition of data sets that will shed light on the solution of these problems.
5 Creation of Orthophoto, Digital Surface Model, Digital Elevation Model, 3D Model and Point Clouds.
6 Spatial analysis of data sets obtained by aerial surveys and photogrammetry with examples and interpretation of sample results with geographic information systems.
7 Thermal imaging applications with examples.
8 Thermal image processing with examples.
9 Multispectral imaging applications with examples.
10 Multispectral image processing with examples.
11 Grouping of the students for Project based team work, distribution of relevant UAV application subjects to the groups, and provision instructions
12 Team Project Presentations 1: All the topics covered within the course, blended with the feedback from the team project presentations, are summarized to the students. Contributions are made to students' problem solving skills in earth sciences. The awareness level of the students is increased by emphasising the gains of the results obtained.
13 Team Project Presentations 2: All the topics covered within the course, blended with the feedback from the team project presentations, are summarized to the students. Contributions are made to students' problem solving skills in earth sciences. The awareness level of the students is increased by emphasising the gains of the results obtained.
14 Team Project Presentations 3: All the topics covered within the course, blended with the feedback from the team project presentations, are summarized to the students. Contributions are made to students' problem solving skills in earth sciences. The awareness level of the students is increased by emphasising the gains of the results obtained.

Recomended or Required Reading

Main References:
Tal, Daniel, and Jon Altschuld. Drone technology in architecture, engineering and construction: A strategic guide to unmanned aerial vehicle operation and implementation. John Wiley & Sons, 2021.
Garg, P. K. (2021). Unmanned aerial vehicles: An introduction. Mercury Learning and Information.
Valavanis, K. P., & Vachtsevanos, G. J. (Eds.). (2015). Handbook of unmanned aerial vehicles (Vol. 1). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
Mohamed, N., Al-Jaroodi, J., Jawhar, I., Idries, A., & Mohammed, F. (2020). Unmanned aerial vehicles applications in future smart cities. Technological forecasting and social change, 153, 119293.
Albeaino, G., Gheisari, M., & Franz, B. W. (2019). A systematic review of unmanned aerial vehicle application areas and technologies in the AEC domain. Journal of information technology in construction, 24.
Berni, J. A., Zarco-Tejada, P. J., Suárez, L., & Fereres, E. (2009). Thermal and narrowband multispectral remote sensing for vegetation monitoring from an unmanned aerial vehicle. IEEE Transactions on geoscience and Remote Sensing, 47(3), 722-738.
Ahmed, O. S., Shemrock, A., Chabot, D., Dillon, C., Williams, G., Wasson, R., & Franklin, S. E. (2017). Hierarchical land cover and vegetation classification using multispectral data acquired from an unmanned aerial vehicle. International journal of remote sensing, 38(8-10), 2037-2052.
Turner, D., Lucieer, A., & Watson, C. (2011, April). Development of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for hyper resolution vineyard mapping based on visible, multispectral, and thermal imagery. In Proceedings of 34th International symposium on remote sensing of environment (Vol. 4).
Nishar, A., Richards, S., Breen, D., Robertson, J., & Breen, B. (2016). Thermal infrared imaging of geothermal environments by UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle). Journal of Unmanned Vehicle Systems, 4(2), 136-145.
Ma, Y., Wu, X., Yu, G., Xu, Y., & Wang, Y. (2016). Pedestrian detection and tracking from low-resolution unmanned aerial vehicle thermal imagery. Sensors, 16(4), 446.
Casas-Mulet, R., Pander, J., Ryu, D., Stewardson, M. J., & Geist, J. (2020). Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based thermal infra-red (TIR) and optical imagery reveals multi-spatial scale controls of cold-water areas over a groundwater-dominated riverscape. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 8, 64.
Yakar, M., Ulvi, A., Yiğit, A. Y., & Hamal, S. N. G. (2022). Insansız Hava Aracı Uygulamaları Agisoft-Metashape. Mersin Üniversitesi Harita Mühendisliği Kitapları.
Yavuz, G. (2019). Açık maden işletmelerinde insansız hava aracı (IHA) uygulamaları. Türkiye Jeoloji Bülteni, 62(1), 99-112.
Villi, O., & Yakar, M. (2023). Insansız Hava Araçları ve Coğrafi Bilgi Sistemleri Uygulamaları. Türkiye Coğrafi Bilgi Sistemleri Dergisi, 5(1), 20-33.
Additional References:
https://www.indexdatabase.de/
Other course materials: DJI Phantom 4 Multispectral and DJI Matrice 30 T unmanned aerial vehicles. Additional References:

Planned Learning Activities and Teaching Methods

1. Lecture/Presentation
2. Team Work Projects / Projects will be submitted in the form of a presentation and will be presented by the group in the relevant lecture hour.
3. Open source evaluation exam

UAV applications, terms, tools and equipment to be used with face-to-face and/or distance learning are introduced and basic concepts are transferred to the students through presentations within the framework of learning outcomes. Data sets from different fields that are collected with UAVs are distributed to the students for team work and the student teams give presentations each week during the course. The student achievement level is measured with an evaluation exam open to access to documents, projects and resources.

Assessment Methods

SORTING NUMBER SHORT CODE LONG CODE FORMULA
1 MTE MIDTERM EXAM
2 PRJ PROJECT
3 FIN FINAL EXAM
4 FCG FINAL COURSE GRADE MTE * 0.15 + PRJ * 0.35 + FIN * 0.50
5 RST RESIT
6 FCGR FINAL COURSE GRADE (RESIT) MTE * 0.15 + PRJ * 0.35 + RST * 0.50


Further Notes About Assessment Methods

None

Assessment Criteria

A Project score is determined from the teamwork presentation. Presentations are submitted at the end of the course in which the presentation is made. Midterm and final exams are evaluated with various question types.

Language of Instruction

Turkish

Course Policies and Rules

Team work is essential

Contact Details for the Lecturer(s)

Doç. Dr. Mehmet AKBULUT makbulut@deu.edu.tr / 0 232 301 73 49
Öğr. Gör. Dr. Semih ESKI: semih.eski@deu.edu.tr / 0 232 301 73 17

Office Hours

To be announced.

Work Placement(s)

None

Workload Calculation

Activities Number Time (hours) Total Work Load (hours)
Lectures 14 2 28
Preparations before/after weekly lectures 14 2 28
Preparation for midterm exam 1 4 4
Preparation for final exam 1 7 7
Project Preparation 1 4 4
Final 1 2 2
Midterm 1 2 2
TOTAL WORKLOAD (hours) 75

Contribution of Learning Outcomes to Programme Outcomes

PO/LOPO.1PO.2PO.3PO.4PO.5PO.6PO.7PO.8PO.9PO.10PO.11
LO.12
LO.23
LO.32
LO.42
LO.52
LO.62
LO.72
LO.82