Field Notes 3

Intro:

UAS can be used for more than just mapping out fields for agricultural use! They can also be used to map out debris fields from natural disasters and that is exactly what we did in this mission.

Study Area:

My crew flew over a barn at the coordinates of, 40°29'26.1"N 86°59'45.0"W, a location known as "Purdue Acres" where an old barn got destroyed by a tornado. We flew three missions, however we were only able to complete two. The platforms used for these missions were the Mavic 2 Pro and the H 520.

Methods:

The first mission was flown by Evan Brueggemann and myself using the Mavic 2. We flew the mission through the pix4D app and had no problems. We flew it manually where I took a video of the debris field then switched roles so that Evan was flying and he flew the debris field taking pictures.

The second mission was of the same debris field and this was flown with the H 520 by James Borders and Jeremy Cousins. They used the H 520 system itself to plan out the mission.

Discussion:

When you look down at Figure 1 you can see that the coverage of the debris field isn't really that bad! we have very good overlap for the majority of the center of the field. Then around the edges our overlap starts to take a drastic turn and we are lucky to get any overlap in some areas. The reasoning behind this poor overlap is very simple! When we flew the mission wanting to compare the outcomes of the orthomosaics between a flight not using a mapping app and a flight using one.

Figure 1

When you compare Figure 2 (Mavic 2 Pro) and Figure 3 (H 520) you can see a clear difference in quality of the images and the shape of the orthomosaic. Figure 2 is very unprofessional and looks like a fifth grader stitched it together. This is not what a company would want turned in of they were paying you to fly the debris field. Figure 3 is what the company would want, very square, sharp, and professional. We could easily of done any type of data analysis on Figure 3 and given that data to anyone who purchased the data.

Figure 2

Figure 3

Conclusion:

This experiment worked out perfectly, and turned out exactly how we wanted it to! We wanted to be able to show that not just any "Joe Schmo" can go out and fly anything and sell the data and images to a company. You need to have actual mission software to aid you in a mission to achieve true professional imaging and data collection.