Tag Archives: sUAS
Build, Buy, Rent, or Hire?
Seven years ago I was invited to attend a UAS flight course; this was an exciting proposition as the drone craze was not yet under way. In fact, the rules for operating drones in the U.S. were so in flux (as far as commercial and private drone use) that the course had to be held...
Assessing the Potential
UAS-based Topobathymetric Lidar Surveys Understanding stream channel and floodplain morphology is critical for a number of efforts—from hydraulic modeling and stream-restoration design to aquatic habitat assessment. These applications require description of conditions both inside the channels and in the adjacent riparian zones. Gathering these data has typically relied on individuals on the ground or in...
Seven Standards for Delivering High-quality sUAS Imagery
I recently attended a pre-bid conference where the customer was interested in small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) imagery over a large enough area that mosaicking of the images was desired. What I thought would be a fairly straightforward conference turned into a knot of questions and exasperation. “How can we do this without ground control?”...
Drone design: What Goes into Designing a Drone?
A UAS firm tackles a topographic mission at 10,000 feet above sea level with their own system. (Above: IST Aerial’s Bo LeRoy uses the firm’s DJI Inspire One to collect data for volumetric calculations for compost piles located on a landfill in Colorado.) IST Aerial is a division of Integrated Science and Technology (IST), founded 25...
Don’t Drone On: Drone Talk & Geospatial Professionals
How to explain the value of UAS to geospatial professionals. I’m the business development director at microdrones, where one of my goals is to help customers–who sell services like aerial mapping, surveying, infrastructure inspection, and monitoring precision agriculture–communicate to their potential clients the value of using UAS. This can be tricky in such a high-tech...
Rosalie Bartlett: Marketing Manager at Kespry
Women in Unmanned Systems Editor’s Note: In our ongoing effort to promote geospatial professions, we’re asking dynamic leaders what attracted them to UAS and other geospatial fields as well as advice they might have for young people considering choosing related career paths. I’ve been fascinated by flight ever since I was little. If I were...
