Several Automated Surveys employees have recently completed their pilot licences to be able to pilot new survey drones, which will be up and running soon.
The drones have the benefit of being able to take photos and snapshots of an area, which are then stitched together using new software (Agisoft and Virtual Surveyor). These programs perform photogrammetric processing of digital images and generate 3D spatial data to be used in indirect measurements of objects of various scales.
The use of the drones presents a few advantages to the current surveying practices, which currently involves the surveying teams having to walk over the area to be surveyed. A major benefit of the drones is the ability to fly and complete in minutes what might have taken hours to walk over. The use of the drone also has the added advantage of reducing risk and making it safer.
To obtain the license, CASA (the Civil Aviation Safety Authority), have created a separate class of drone that only requires registration of your drone and the pilot completing an online accreditation.
Automated Surveys have acquired the DJI Phantom 4 RTK. This drone has the ability to include flight paths and details pre-programmed prior to flying, which then means on site it simply becomes a matter of launching the drone.