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A SPECIAL REPORT FROMCommercial Drone Professional

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SURVEYING AND

MAPPING

SPECIAL REPORT:

The drone industry is constantly evolving but can only do so with a variety of market verticals pushing it on. As part

of this month’s Special Report, the April edition of the monthly series, Commercial Drone Professional takes a

look into exactly how drones are benefitting the surveying and mapping market across the UK. We ask industry

leaders to give their exclusive insight.

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SPECIAL REPORT: SURVEYING AND MAPPING

O N T H E P A N E L

Mat Kellett: Business Development Manager,

Topcon

Marcos Nunez:Marketing Co-ordinator, SimActive

Varun Sarwal: Founder and CEO, Hammer Missions

Philipp Amon:Manager, ULS Business Division,

Riegl

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SPECIAL REPORT: SURVEYING AND MAPPING

Firstly, what is a drone’s role in a mapping/surveying mission? MK: Drones are when used correctly can be an important part of a surveyor’s

toolbox. Drones can offer a valuable method of both rapidly mapping large

areas and providing that all important snapshot of reality which is not always

possible using traditional surveying methods.

PA: Utilizing unmanned airborne platforms provides the ability to acquire

highly precise data in dangerous and/or hard-to-reach areas, while offering an

excellent cost-to-benefit-ratio for numerous applications. Equipped with the

appropriate surveying equipment, UAVs also help to make the surveyors’ work

safer, more accurate and detailed, and more efficient than ever before.

Choosing the right UAV for a job depends on understanding the

environmental and topographical characteristics of the area to be surveyed,

the basic capabilities of the UAV types available (fixed wing, single rotor

or multi rotor type), anticipating which kind of sensors need to be carried

on board and their unique mounting requirements, and any other needs or

impacts that may affect the job at hand. Flight plans must carefully consider

payload capacity and flight time autonomy requisites of the various UAV

choices being considered.

Sensors and cameras are becoming lighter, smaller, more precise and

faster. RIEGL offers a broad portfolio of lightweight and ultra-fast UAV LiDAR

sensors and systems (miniVUX series and VUX series) for most applications.

All RIEGL LiDAR sensors and systems are characterized by compact and

rugged designs, highest measurement capabilities, and performance under

adverse environmental conditions. Also, RIEGL offers the RiCOPTER, a RIEGL-

made, turn-key UAV system that integrates a highly accurate RIEGL scanning

system and optional cameras with the fully redundant and 25kg MTOM multi-

rotor UAV platform.

In the past few years the available portfolio of drones has grown immensely

and includes options for low and slow flight, or high-flight with a heavier

payload capability. Today you will find extremely small, compact and

lightweight sensors (like the RIEGL miniVUX-2UAV which weighs only 3.4

lbs / 1.6 kg, and measures in mm 243L x 111W x 85H) for applications using

low-flying small single-rotor, multi-rotor or fixed-wing UAVs. There are higher-

flying large drones that are available to carry relatively heavy payloads.

These high-flying drones are ready for integration with more powerful and

larger sensors, or sensor combinations to meet the requirements of special

applications like collecting detailed high-resolution data.

MN: Drones allow to gather high-resolution imagery over a region. Cameras

as well as GPS and sometimes other specialized sensors are mounted on

them, allowing to capture geospatial information. The resulting data can be

used to generate mapping products such as mosaic of orthophotos, point

clouds, elevation data and 3D models.

Drones can offer a valuable method of both rapidly mapping large areas and providing that all important snapshot of reality

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SPECIAL REPORT: SURVEYING AND MAPPING

VS: A drone with respect to mapping/surveying is a localised data capture

tool that can be used for quick and precise aerial data acquisition with

high levels resolution. Aerial data with drones typically refers to capturing

a sequence of geotagged images with the required properties (resolution,

overlap, lighting, etc) that can be processed into meaningful information

through photogrammetry techniques.

How have drones changed the mapping/surveying market for the better?MK: Speed of data capture, the ‘Birds Eye View’ and completeness of survey

from drones has greatly enhanced the traditional survey.

PA: For many applications,

drones have made the

surveyor’s work safer for

obvious reasons. Further,

efficiency and effectivity

have increased immensely.

Monitoring applications (like

pipeline, power line, railway

line, or bridge inspection) can

be performed at low cost, and

thus at greater frequency for

the same budget.

Now data from small- to

medium-sized areas can be

acquired much more efficiently

than with standard airborne laser scanning using manned helicopters or

fixed-wing aircraft. The new generation of drones, with their ability to fly

lower and slower, offers the ability to acquire data at high point density and

high resolution. Larger drones with higher payload capacity allow operators

to integrate surveying systems with different sensors and cameras so that

different data (scan data, camera data, thermal image data, etc.) can be

acquired simultaneously in a single operation.

MN: Prior to drones, the only way to gather imagery for mapping was through

the use of satellites and aircrafts. Major investments were thus necessary to

perform any geospatial data acquisition. Drones have allowed to democratize

mapping, and to allow multiple applications that were not available before.

VS: Drones have filled a gap in the market for mapping areas that needed high

resolution imagery but were too expensive to map with high altitude methods

(satellite, planes, etc). Moreover, due to the ever reducing cost of drone/

sensor hardware and automation/processing software, organisations can now

Monitoring applications (like pipeline, power line, railway line, or bridge inspection) can be performed at low cost, and thus at greater frequency for the same budget.”

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SPECIAL REPORT: SURVEYING AND MAPPING

collect their own data through in-house drone programs and have complete

control on how the data is collected, stored and integrated into their existing

workflows.

What can drones offer that previous equipment and related methods cannot?MK: Some of the significant advantages that drones bring to survey are

speed, completeness and safety. Drones can access hard to reach areas

such as quarry faces, or with the right permissions capture data adjacent to

highways and rail. With the industry trend towards BIM / Digital Twins, drones

can play an important role in providing the 3D digital data required for this

technological evolution.

PA: For data acquisition of small-to-medium-sized areas a drone-based survey

can now be done more cost effectively than ever before. The use of a drone is,

in most cases, much cheaper compared to surveying missions performed by

manned helicopters or fixed-wing aircrafts.

Also, a huge benefit of single-rotor or multi-rotor drones is that they are not

bound to specific take-off/landing areas. Thus, they are often perfect for small

projects in areas with constraints like marshes, cliffs, densely vegetated areas

like jungles, bridge under-decks, disaster areas, etc.

Finally, because drones can fly low and slow, it’s also possible to achieve

incredibly high point densities

and resolution, which equates

to detailed visualization of

even small objects such as

fissures, nuts and bolts, breaks in

connections, serial numbers, and

change detection on critical but

tiny details.

MN: Acquisition and processing

of imagery collected by aircrafts

and satellites are generally long

(e.g. several months) and lead

to image resolutions in the order

of 10cm a pixel at best. Drones

allow projects to be flown, processed and delivered within the same day, at

subcentimeter resolutions. This provides a big operational advantage.

VS: 1. Versatile: Drones are truly versatile platforms that can be used in a

number of different ways.

Because of configurable payloads and versatile flight software, they can be

now be used to collect a variety of different datasets that together paint a

Drones allow projects to be flown, processed and delivered within the same day, at subcentimeter resolutions.

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SPECIAL REPORT: SURVEYING AND MAPPING

deeper picture of mapping subject.

2. On-Demand: Secondly, drones serve as a useful tool for mapping

projects that require on-demand data but have access constraints - think roof

inspections or flood modelling.

3. Fast & Precise: Last but not the least, as long as the areas in question are

not too large, drones are the fastest way to collect high resolution data at

scale compared to other related methods.

What challenges do mapping/surveying teams face when using drone technology? Specifically, is regulation an obstacle? MK: Regulation can be an obstacle, but I feel this is a rapidly evolving area and

as we see a move to more automation and situational aware drones over the

next decade, this will become less of an issue. One of the biggest hurdles we

currently have in the industry is the misrepresentation of accuracy and what

drones can achieve. Over specifying achievable accuracies can often deter

clients from trusting the technology and as such professional surveyors and

operators often have an upwards battle convincing their clients otherwise.

PA: Appropriate training and experience of the surveying team, especially the

pilots, is a prerequisite for successful missions.

Regulation and restrictions

are still topics of concern, but

this has been improving in

the past few years. The new

European-wide regulation is

under construction now and will

soon be in force. It will simplify

the workflows and the work

loads of surveying teams. The US

regulatory situation is likely to be

changing as well. Beyond Visual

Line of Sight (BVLOS) regulation

changes are being considered

everywhere.

And of course, a continual

challenge for UAV teams will always be weather conditions which are

uncontrollable and sometimes unpredictable. Especially for the use of drones,

the increasingly frequent advent of winds, most notably wind gusts, poses a

concern that should not be underestimated.

MN: While the technology appears to be very easy to use, it may be

challenging for organizations new to it to produce accurate results.

Knowledge needs to be acquired through proper training on both the correct

acquisition of data, and their subsequent post-processing. These two aspects

play an important role in the quality of the mapping products produced.

VS: We believe the fundamental problem in mapping/surveying is the lack

of versatile flight software. Most software available in the market is too

specialised and too rigid to allow for creative data capture. Learning new

software over and over again is extremely expensive and risky when it comes

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SPECIAL REPORT: SURVEYING AND MAPPING

to flying commercial drones. We’re currently trying to tackle this problem

through our adaptive flight automation platform - Hammer. We do not think

regulations are an obstacle, however, the ever changing landscape can be hard

to keep up with. Thankfully, a strong focus on training in the industry can help

everyone stay compliant with flight regulation.

How are you expecting this market vertical to evolve?MK: Further developments in how we manage, and process data will be some

of the biggest changes to the use of drones for surveying and mapping. I

envisage in the near future more use of AI for intelligently automating the

inspection of images and near real-time processing of mapping data. In

respect of the hardware itself, smaller lighter sensors both LIDAR and camera

based with improved battery for longer flight times will improve the efficiency

of data capture.

PA: Digitization of data is the buzzword of our decade. Increasing growth

in the consumption of data has produced a high demand for accurate and

informative survey information. Drones offer an efficient and effective way to

meet this need. It can therefore be expected that the surveying and mapping

business utilizing drones-based collection will continue to grow and develop

further. Of course, drones and sensors and camera will continue to evolve and

we can certainly look forward to interesting innovations.

In addition, the BVLOS regulation changes being considered will give a

further boost to the UAV-based surveying/mapping industry. We all need to

watch for developments in our areas of the world.

In summary, the drone-based mapping and surveying solutions available

today are performing at a level never before achieved. This is the technology

of the day, and I predict the industry will continue to embrace this approach

for the foreseeable future.

MN: Mapping/surveying serves several applications, such as agriculture,

mining, engineering and many others. There has been an exponentially

growing number of users taking profit of drone technologies on in the last

couple of years, and it will definitely keep rising.

VS: Mapping have become the defacto use-case for drones in the commercial

drone industry. However, we believe there are lots of new use-cases yet to

be discovered. Our core belief is that “mapping to a drone is what calling is

to a phone”. Phones became popular for the calling function, but that’s not

the only thing we use them for today. With time, we expect the market to

see high-frequency operations as businesses optimise their data capture and

processing. Frequent mapping will also power a new wave of use-cases from

change analysis to real time feature detection and reporting.

We believe the fundamental problem in mapping/surveying is the lack of versatile flight software. Most software available in the market is too specialised and too rigid to allow for creative data capture.”

SPECIAL REPORT: SURVEYING AND MAPPING

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