The extraction of relevant traffic information is one of the main research areas of the project VABENE ++. For this purpose, methods have already been developed to derive information on traffic flow from aerial photographs. The images are acquired by the 3K camera system on the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan or Dornier Do 228 and 4k camera system on the helicopter BO 105. In order to be able to react flexibly to situations in which a rapid evaluation of the traffic situation is necessary DLR scientists are currently testing the use of a MAV (Micro Aerial Vehicles) for traffic detection.
Here, the AscTec Falcon 8 flight system is used, which is equipped with a GoPro Hero3+ camera, a GPS receiver, and a unit for data transfer. The photographs and video clips will be used for the acquisition of the current traffic situation. In addition, these images will serve as input data to generate digital surface models.