Inspired by the words of @tobias-dahms I thought to put a thread together. What would the components be for a top of the line mapping drone if it was built by Emlid or your own custom build (with some Emlid components)? Open to multi-rotor and fixed-wing aircrafts but please describe the situation that warrants one over the other.
While this can be geared towards just the aircraft I think we should expand to the entire mapping workflow and how Emlid’s products can improve getting to the final product of meaningful and actionable data.
What are you mapping?
What would the craft be carrying and why?
How is Emlid incorporated on the craft and in your workflow?
What are the current limitations/difficulties in your workflow and how can be improved?
Mapping- Pre and post burned forest environments.(heavy timber)
Sensor-high resoulution RGB (Approx 24MP and above preferably a 42MP full frame sensor) with thermal and ability to swap out multi-spectral bands.
Currently use emlid to setup plot GCP’s (we also have a trimble but prefer the emlid easy to use and just as accurate in the right situations and no need for some special software to get the data out!) Also have reach added to uav for RTK navigation as well as PPK processing of cam trig after the fact.
None really, other than have to use multiple cameras to achieve the data collection needs. Really looking forward to the RS2. Will emlid also be offering an educational discount for that product?
On a side note I believe a UAV needs to be solely designed around what data it is you are collecting and what sensor/sensors it is you will be using. That way you are able to optimize everything based on the sensor and what type of data you want to collect. I have flown countless hours on DJI, 3DR solo, yuneec, and plenty of custom A3 and pixhawk flight controllers. I will say that it is very difficult to turn even a M100 into a great research platform, but it is also just as hard to beat how integrated sensor payloads are with DJI, albeit they call the XT pro a radiometric camera hahaha its kind of a joke. Yet you can buy a drone that is based off of the DJI A3 controller that looks good and cool and has 120k of SWIR,LWIR cameras on it but lacks any integration for the sensor package and all you have is nice cameras that doesn’t do diddly.
