Drones in Construction and Earthworks

Australian construction, road and rail works. Drones and their application is a popular topic many Australian business. The construction industry were early adopters of drones. The industry has been using them and other unmanned vehicles to provide a range of services since 2013. The application and use of drone technology in the construction industry falls into three main categories; survey, progress monitoring, and asset inspection. Each of these applications require specialist knowledge and technology. The following will focus on the drone survey applications. The movement of large volumes of the earth is an essential part of construction. The logistics, engineering effort …

How to generate a Thermal Orthomosaic / Map with radiometric information

14 August, 2019 Posted by Nigel Brown Environment Inspection Mapping Thermal

The principals of photogrammetry are well documented and need not be explained in detail, however with the continual miniaturisation and improved resolution of thermal cameras begs the question: Can you apply the same principals of photogrammetry to thermal images? The short answer is yes, however the idea becomes more difficult when you attempt to retain the radiometric information. Below is a workflow that will allow you to generate thermal Orthomosaic and retain the radiometric information. Most radiometric sensors like the Tau 2 allow for 640×512 resolution .rjpeg images to be captured. The radiometric data however is not contained within the …

3D modelling rock revetments

31 July, 2019 Posted by Nigel Brown 3d Modelling Aerial Inspection Mapping Revetments Environment Inspection Mapping

Recently the team at Uaviation have been focused on developing and applying new 3d modelling technology to the management of erosion prevention assets. The focus has primarily been on automating and standardising the assessment of coastal rock revetments. Uaviation’s systems focus on collection and analysis of: Voids Within the Revetment; Rock Displacement and Erosion; Exposure of Geo-fabric; Debris Build-up; and, Slope Differentials and S-curve development. Using unmanned aircraft (drones) Uaviation collect, detailed, high resolution imagery of the armour. Voids in the armour surface is measured using aerial imagery analysis where the tessellation and particle size of rocks are analysed. Uaviation …

A Guide to Thermal Mapping and Surveys.

8 December, 2016 Posted by Nigel Brown Mapping

Uaviation provides thermal mapping, inspection and survey solutions using UAV drone systems. Through simple oblique photography, complete GIS data sets or more complex 3D modelling, the use of this technology is helping our clients monitor a range of asset maintenance and environmental issues. We use airborne GPS and IMU to optimized image collection methods for image geopositioning, providing our customers with geospatially-accurate maps for precise measurements and locations. The visualization of thermal maps varies between application. Typically, the simplest 2D map form of visualisation is used for analysis purposes, however, thermal maps can be in 2D, 3D, 4D and even …

Weed detection, classification and mapping using drones.

27 September, 2016 Posted by Nigel Brown Aerial Drone Invasive Mapping Vegetation Weed Agriculture Environment Innovation Mapping

Many of the safety risks in the natural resource industry are drawn from having staff traversing difficult ground. This risk is exacerbated when these staff have a task to perform such as filling data sheets, that require them to shift their attention from their surroundings. Interest in aerial means of capturing data to negate this risk and other challenges is increasing. We have developed a number of methods to map weeds with varying degrees of automation in the analysis process. Capturing extremely high resolution data with drones is simple, cheap and easy. The challenge is converting that data into actionable …

DroneDeploy “Mission Exceeds Maximum Radius” SOLVED

15 September, 2016 Posted by Nigel Brown Distance Limit DroneDeploy Mission Exceeds Maximum Radius solved Innovation Mapping Systems and Process Technology

I’ve been using DroneDeploy as a flight control system frequently in the last couple of weeks. Whilst good, I keep encountering issues during pre-flight. On this occasion I encountered “Mission Exceeds Maximum Radius” during the pre-flight checks for our Inspire. I didn’t know this at the time but within the DJI GO app there is a section called ‘distance limit’ under the MC Settings that acts as a geofence. If your mapping mission exceeds this limit, it will throw you a settings error. Just uncheck distance limit or change it to something larger than the maximum distance for your mission. …

DroneDeploy Waiting for Drone SOLVED

15 September, 2016 Posted by Nigel Brown DroneDeploy Inspire solved Waiting for drone Innovation Mapping Systems and Process Technology Testing

Last week was our first attempt at using the DroneDeploy app as a flight control system for our DJI Inspire. Whilst the operational delivery of the app was simple, in the initial setup can we encountered a number of problems. These problem are all drawn from safety precautions taken by the app which is a good sign, however error messages are not very descriptive. The first problem we had was the “Waiting for Drone” message. On connection of the inspire I was not able to connect the drone as this message would remain. I was conducting these test connections inside …

NDVI Imaging

25 August, 2016 Posted by Nigel Brown Agriculture Environment Innovation Mapping

The benefits of using UAV technology to measure crop health and improve production have excited agriculturalists for years. By seperating light bands such as blue, green, red, and near-infrared and measuring the intensity of light reflected from plants, stress can be identified significantly sooner than with the naked eye. Crop yields can be boosted by using imagery to assist in scouting, identifying nitrogen deficiencies, and detecting faulty application equipment and irrigation systems. Technologies such as digital cameras, UAVs (Drones) and big data computing have matured to a point where regular, high quality imagery is available to all farmers. The affordability of unmanned aircraft means that …