Practical Examples Of Drone Surveying For Local Council Applications

UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) have come of age – no longer a plaything for the enthusiast, the technology has matured sufficiently that UAVs now provide a range of capabilities that are already replacing and improving upon mapping and measurement tools routinely used by engineers. More traditional methods for the collection of elevation data over large areas can be labour intensive and slow using land based RTK-GPS, and the use of airborne LiDAR may be unfeasible given the resources of an individual study or design project. UAV surveying is capable of providing high quality survey grade data at a substantially lower price than these conventional surveying techniques with the benefit of delivering a much higher density of sampling. The innovative technology delivers both a high resolution aerial imagery and highly accurate elevation point cloud data.This presentation will provide a brief overview of the theory behind UAV surveying followed by a discussion of the data output. A range of practical examples that illustrate the practical application of UAVs to surveying in applications relevant to local Councils will be presented, including: routine monitoring and mapping of beaches and coastal wetlands; landfill management and vegetation mapping in wetlands/estuaries. Finally, an overview of the current regulatory environment which surrounds the professional use of UAV operations in Australia will be outlined