{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,12]],"date-time":"2025-12-12T13:43:30Z","timestamp":1765547010401,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":24,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"23","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,6]],"date-time":"2022-12-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1670284800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"FCT (Funda\u00e7\u00e3o para a Ci\u00eancia e a Tecnologia), Portugal","award":["DSAIPA\/DS\/0113\/2019","UIDB\/04152\/2020"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["DSAIPA\/DS\/0113\/2019","UIDB\/04152\/2020"]}]},{"name":"Centro de Investiga\u00e7\u00e3o em Gest\u00e3o de Informa\u00e7\u00e3o (MagIC)\/NOVA IMS","award":["DSAIPA\/DS\/0113\/2019","UIDB\/04152\/2020"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["DSAIPA\/DS\/0113\/2019","UIDB\/04152\/2020"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Consumer-level UAVs are often employed for surveillance, especially in urban areas. Within this context, human recognition via estimation of biometric traits, like body height, is of pivotal relevance. Previous studies confirmed that the pinhole model could be used for this purpose, but only if the accurate distance between the aerial camera and the target is known. Unfortunately, low positional accuracy of the drones and the difficulties of retrieving the coordinates of a moving target like a human may prevent reaching the required level of accuracy. This paper proposes a novel solution that may overcome this issue. It foresees calculating the relative altitude of the drone from the target by knowing only the ground distance between two points visible in the image. This relative altitude can be then used to calculate the target-to-camera distance without using the coordinates of the drone or the target. The procedure was verified with real data collected with a quadcopter, first considering a controlled environment with a wooden pole of known height and then a person in a more realistic scenario. The verification confirmed that a high level of accuracy can be reached, even with regular market drones.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs14236176","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,7]],"date-time":"2022-12-07T04:00:37Z","timestamp":1670385637000},"page":"6176","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Estimation of Human Body Height Using Consumer-Level UAVs"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4772-9985","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Andrea","family":"Tonini","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"European Maritime Safety Agency, Surveillance Unit\u2014Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems, Pra\u00e7a Europa 4, 1249-206 Lisbon, Portugal"},{"name":"NOVA Information Management School (NOVA IMS), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus de Campolide, 1070-312 Lisbon, Portugal"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1136-3387","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Marco","family":"Painho","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"NOVA Information Management School (NOVA IMS), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus de Campolide, 1070-312 Lisbon, Portugal"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8793-1451","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mauro","family":"Castelli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"NOVA Information Management School (NOVA IMS), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus de Campolide, 1070-312 Lisbon, Portugal"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"56611","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2022.3177904","article-title":"Involvement of Surveillance Drones in Smart Cities: A Systematic Review","volume":"10","author":"Gohari","year":"2022","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"614146","DOI":"10.1155\/2012\/614146","article-title":"A Survey and Proposed Framework on the Soft Biometrics Technique for Human Identification in Intelligent Video Surveillance System","volume":"2012","author":"Kim","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. Biomed. and Biotechnol."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Tonini, A., Redweik, P., Painho, M., and Castelli, M. (2020). Remote Estimation of Target Height from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Images. Remote Sens., 12.","DOI":"10.3390\/rs12213602"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kraus, K., and Harley, I. (2007). Photogrammetry: Geometry from Images and Laser Scans. de Gruyter Textbook, de Gruyter. [2nd ed.].","DOI":"10.1515\/9783110892871"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kainz, O., Dopiriak, M., Michalko, M., Jakab, F., and Fecil\u2019Ak, P. (2021, January 11). Estimating the Height of a Person from a Video Sequence. Proceedings of the 2021 19th International Conference on Emerging eLearning Technologies and Applications (ICETA), Ko\u0161ice, Slovakia.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICETA54173.2021.9726680"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Jeges, E., Kispal, I., and Hornak, Z. 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