Tag Archives: uav
Surrogate UAS
Above: Hart Drobish, president of Courtney Aviation, was a contractor to the forest service flying the air tactical control platforms on the Happy Camp Complex wildfire. Additionally, Drobish served as a ground liaison contact on the project, managing the flow of infrared and visual imagery from the aircraft to the end users. Combining UAV technology...
SGM
Obtaining economical and accurate point clouds from semi-global matching. In the old days, mappers were thrilled with 30 meter USGS digital elevation models (DEMs). These were available for almost everywhere in the United States. Years later they started producing 10m DEMs, and life was really good. We had one elevation point “on the ground” every...
COAs from an Operational Applicant’s Perspective
Above picture: As COAs cross different airspace types, more coordination is required for the FAA to allows safe UAS operations in the National Airspace. By now, most everyone reading this has at least some understanding of the potential benefits an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) has on their industry. I have read publications that mention that precision...
ROPOS: ROV Cool
I recently accompanied a film crew working on a documentary on maritime technologies to the NOAA facility in Newport, Oregon to catch a glimpse of what is widely celebrated as the “coolest ROV in the world.” The Remotely Operated Platform for Ocean Sciences (ROPOS) is the flagship research ROV of the Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility...
All Over the Map
The regulations and uses of UAVs for mapping in Latin America are as diverse as those cultures, but their drivers are much the same as we see here in the United States. Using manned airplanes for aerial photography and photogrammetry is an especially expensive proposition for countries south of the Rio Grande. The reasons are...
Aerial Imaging in Antarctica
It was quite an adventure: an all-or-nothing mission to map a research station in Antarctica. Like numerous countries around the world, Ecuador’s mapping agency, Instituto Geografico Militar (National Military Geographic Institute of Ecuador or IGM), is a technical institution within the country’s military establishment. The IGM is responsible for developing the national mapping and the geographic...
