We at Professional Land Systems are excited and enthusiastic to be the first to bring true aerial drone surveying to Tennessee. Why the distinction “true” aerial UAV surveys? We’ve found that there is some confusion about the meaning of aerial surveying. Some companies using a quadcopter they bought from Amazon to take photographs claim that they do aerial surveying. That is just not the case. Do they produce high resolution geoTIFF’s or orthomosaic photographs? No. 3D geo-referenced point clouds? No. Volume calculations and contouring? No. Do they even understand the meanings and implications of the aforementioned phrases? I seriously doubt it. The type of equipment we use is far more sophisticated than the typical hobbyist drone. But enough negativity. We are here to punctuate the positive potential of UAV aerial surveys. We chose the eBeeRTK by Sensefly for our platform. Please see our introductory post here.
First, UAV data collection is very fast. A typical flight of less than 100 acres takes 15-20 minutes. The real work is then done in the office. Meaning no production delay for clients that formerly had to wait for ground personnel to arrive, do the work, and clear the site. Since our UAV flies at an altitude of 400 feet, almost no one even realizes the work is being done. What previously took survey crews hours to do in the field can now literally be done in minutes!
Secondly, the diverse projects that can be completed with the UAV are virtually unlimited. Accident reconstruction, quick site assessment for development, environmental impact studies, disaster assessment, crop health assessment, stockpile volumes, construction progress monitoring, and more. This is truly incredible technology, limited only by imagination. Sensefly even has a demo project where they mapped the Matterhorn.
We’ve decided to dedicate this separate website and blog to our drone survey division. We’ll still be providing the same great conventional surveying services through our other site. Please ask any questions that come to mind and we’ll try to answer them in future posts.
Ned Ferguson