Collaborative Mapping of Archaeological Sites using multiple UAVs

TL;DR

This paper introduces a multi-UAV collaborative approach for faster and more accurate archaeological site mapping, validated through simulations and real-world data, including the first 3D map of Sadra Fort.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel multi-UAV method for archaeological mapping that reduces time and improves accuracy, along with new datasets and a publicly available simulation environment.

Findings

Reduced mapping time through UAV collaboration

Improved map accuracy via information exchange

First 3D map of Sadra Fort using the proposed method

Abstract

UAVs have found an important application in archaeological mapping. Majority of the existing methods employ an offline method to process the data collected from an archaeological site. They are time-consuming and computationally expensive. In this paper, we present a multi-UAV approach for faster mapping of archaeological sites. Employing a team of UAVs not only reduces the mapping time by distribution of coverage area, but also improves the map accuracy by exchange of information. Through extensive experiments in a realistic simulation (AirSim), we demonstrate the advantages of using a collaborative mapping approach. We then create the first 3D map of the Sadra Fort, a 15th Century Fort located in Gujarat, India using our proposed method. Additionally, we present two novel archaeological datasets recorded in both simulation and real-world to facilitate research on collaborative archaeological mapping. For the benefit of the community, we make the AirSim simulation environment, as well as the datasets publicly available.