Articles by Federica Vacatello

The UAVIMALS system is a small airborne laser scanner prototype resulting from interdisciplinary research conducted by the Sapienza University of Rome and the Institute of BioRobotics of the Scuola Superiore S. Anna in Pisa. The project was financed by the National Geographic Society (Early Career Grant No. EC-50761T-18). Its aim was to develop an inexpensive and open source remote sensing system, test an engineered LiDAR sensor for autonomous vehicles, and create a specific aerial system for ‘micro-relief’ archaeological trace detection. The experiment conducted in the archaeological context of Leopolis-Cencelle (VT) demonstrated the effectiveness of a self-built open source hardware and software system that can be adapted to different types of archaeological visibility.

The excavation of the medieval city of Leopoli-Cencelle (Tarquinia, VT) has reached its 24th campaign. The graphic documentation produced over this period faithfully reflects how Information Technologies and instruments for data acquisition have developed in the course of about 20 years. In the case of Leopoli-Cencelle, the main challenge was to produce a modern system of managing and using data and to subsume all the paper elements into one functional and searchable digital format.