Swinglet CAM exploring the Medieval City of Merv, on the Silk Roads of Central Asia

Authors: Tim Williams, UCL Institute of Archaeology, London WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom

This paper presents an interesting use case of the swinglet CAM for an archaeological project where the use of satellite or photogrammetry airplanes was not satisfying. It demonstrates and discusses how to create effective digital terrain models (DTM) of intricate city surface landscapes with shallow mounds and depressions.

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Photogrammetric Performance of an Ultralightweight Swinglet UAV

Authors: Vallet, J., Panissod, F., Strecha, C., and Tracol, M. Presented at: UAV-g 2011 - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in Geomatics, Zürich, Switzerland

This paper is the first one to systematically compare results obtained with a swinglet CAM + Postflight Service powered by Pix4D to those obtained with a professional LIDAR carried onboard a manned helicopter. The main conclusion is that the accuracy of the Digital Terrain Model (DTM) based on swinglet CAM images taken at 150m height is in the range of 10-15cm.

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The Accuracy of Automatic Photogrammetric Techniques on Ultra-light UAV Imagery

Authors: Küng, O., Strecha, C., Beyeler, A., Zufferey, J.-C., Floreano, D., and Fua, P. Presented at: UAV-g 2011 - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in Geomatics, Zürich, Switzerland

This paper provides a description of the algorithms developed by Pix4D that are underlying the automatic 3D reconstruction of scenes using images taken by the swinglet CAM. It also shows how the accuracy of the resulting 2D and 3D maps varies in function of the altitude.

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Jean-Christophe Zufferey

Chief Executive Officer
Jean-Christophe guides the strategic direction of senseFly. Since 2001, he has been pioneering the field of bio-inspired control for small autonomous flying robots. Jean-Christophe holds a Ph.D. in mobile robotics from EPFL, Lausanne, and a M.Sc. in micro-engineering with a master project completed at CMU, Pittsburgh. In parallel to his research, he followed a continuous formation in Entrepreneurship and Management. Since 2005, he has been involved in the management of various projects in aerial mobile robotics as group leader at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems. He is also teaching mobile robotics at EPFL.

Andrea Hildebrand

Head of Marketing and Sales
Andrea brings a broad experience of international markets and technical product management. She is member of the board since she joined the company in February 2010. Previously, she worked as Sales and Program Manager for RUAG Aerospace, a manufacturer of airplane structures. From 2006 to 2009 she was employed as Customer Support Engineer, Application Engineer and Program Manager at Vectronix, a manufacturer of observation, orientation and distance measurement devices. She holds a degree in Geodesy Engineering from the German University of Applied Science and Technology in Berlin.

Antoine Beyeler

Chief Technical Officer
Holder of a Ph.D. in micro-engineering, Antoine is an expert in aerial robotics and embedded software programming. Prior to founding senseFly, he was independent software developer and research assistant at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), where he focused on the design and the control of micro-UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). His 10+ year experience in software and hardware development provides him with the technological skills required to bring micro-UAVs to a reality.