Da due chili in giù. Droni minimali e ricognizione archeologica

The increasingly massive spread of small drones on the general market comes along with a rapid evolution of image acquisition devices. Even basic sensors are getting more sophisticated and miniaturized at the same time. The recent appearance of minimal-size professional drones is to be taken into the proper account, since it can have major impli- cations in several fields of geographic survey and, specifically, in Ar- chaeology. Although many regulatory aspects of the use of “remotely piloted aerial systems” (RPAS) are yet to be fully clarified both in It- aly and Europe, minimal-size drones will probably be subject to less restrictive operational limitations. Furthermore, small drones are gen- erally safer and easier to deploy on the field than larger machines. If technologies and techniques are appropriately developed, then, the advantage of using minimal drones is evident. However, typical draw- backs of this class of machines are similarly evident: Light RPAS-s can (typically) lift low payloads. This, in turn, means that corresponding- ly small cameras and sensors must be chosen. All types of geographic surveys are directly affected by sensor-quality issues caused by payload weight restrictions; the problem becomes crucial, however, when it comes to archaeological photogrammetry. Hence, a useful contribu- tion to methodological discussions is an evaluation of opportunities given by currently available consumer level, minimal, mini/micro drones. This work has considered strengths and weaknesses of the sur- veying capabilities of three classes of multirotor drones whose mass was between 2 kgs and 0.13 kgs in a typical surveying scenario. The research had no ambition of exhaustivity; yet, the authors believe the results can prove valuable in clarifying some opportunities and issues.