Abstract

Commercial Unmanned Aerial Surveys (UAS) Take Flight
Track: Technology
Authors: Scott McTavish

Accuas provides UAST (Unmanned Aerial SurveysT), GIS, photogrammetry and remote sensing services using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to a growing number of industries and clients across Canada and internationally. We are revolutionizing the surveying and aerial mapping industries.
UAV based surveying is a new field which can extend the aerial photogrammetric process to smaller areas than those traditionally covered by manned aircraft. This approach can result in substantial cost savings, while at the same time achieving relatively high horizontal and vertical accuracies. While the processes involved are generally similar to those carried out by traditional photogrammetric survey companies, there are a number of significant differences. Flying heights are generally much lower, and off the shelf compact cameras are often used to reduce weight.
We will discuss the challenges of flying UAV's in difficult environments, from British Columbia's rugged mountainous terrain, to extreme heat and wind gusts in the Prairies, to sub zero snowfall conditions in Ontario. Through over 800 commercial flights in numerous industries, we have gained considerable knowledge on what is required from a UAV platform, proper field and mission planning techniques and post processing of data in order to properly meet the demands of the engineering commercial sector.

This presentation will demonstrate past projects and development, along with possible future applications. We will also showcase real world examples using ArcScene and ArcGIS Explorer and custom volumetric tools built in ArcGIS. Finally, we will introduce our next generation, medium-range UAST system to be released in July of 2011.