Category Archives: Aerial/UAS
Swords into Plowshares: AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2018
The last time I visited the AUVSI conference was about 10 years ago. I remember walking into the show and thinking, “Did I just accidentally walk onto a military base?” The exhibits were populated with Predators, Reapers, and at least one Global Hawk. Every other attendee was dressed in their best camo BDUs. Not judging,...
BVLOS
Beyond visual line of sight is the next frontier for UAVs. The FFA’s Part 107 rule allows for routine civil operation of small unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAV) in the National Airspace System (NAS) and provides safety rules for those operations. Since this implementation almost two years ago, more than 70,000 drone pilot applications have been...
Powerline Inspection
Drone? Ground? Helicopter? For years now drones, UAVs, UASs or whatever you wish to call them have been the revolution that promises to change the way we live. Five+ years into the drone revolution we are seeing some change—but it has certainly been a slower progression than expected. Linewise Aerial specializes in transmission line inspection...
Low-cost Tech for Aerial Archeology, Part One
Last February we took a look at how airborne lidar is revolutionizing the science of archeology in Lidar and The Lost City of the Monkey God. Lidar is nothing less than a godsend for the search for lost cities and civilizations. But it comes at a price, one that cash-strapped archeologists can’t always afford. I’d...
Improving GNSS in the Urban Canyon
To prepare you for the this blog post, I wish to point out that I am a geospatial expert and can hold my own around the ins and outs of survey, so going to an event at the Ordnance Survey on “3D mapping for the improvement of GNSS in urban areas” was an eye-opener. You...
The 2017 Flooding of Missouri’s Meramec River
Missouri’s Meramec River is one of the largest free-flowing waterways in the state. With a source southwest of St. Louis, in Dent County, and the mouth at the Mississippi River in Arnold, some 20 miles south of St. Louis, its meandering 220 miles drain nearly 4,000 square miles in a watershed covering six Missouri counties....
