Is the Inspire 1 the right uav for this job?

[CVIBob]

I do crop research in the midwest. I am NOT an RC pilot-and don't want to be one. In the past I have hired a Cessna 172 & pilot to do aerial photos of my plots, with good success. My goal is a fully automated typical flight like this: 1. The uav is sitting on the ground, being fully programed and locked on to satellites for the flight in the AP. 2. I hit the "start" or whatever button, it launches, goes to about 200 ft above the ground, hovers for a bit, and then heads straight east for 1500 ft, taking a straight down still photo every second or so. 3. At the end of the 1500 ft, it turns south for another 200 ft, then travels back coming straight west, and lands at the end of the strip, in a different location than it started. 4. The camera is then shut off. My goal is to have this SAME flight program and path repeated every few days thru the season, at different times of the day, always in good weather, never in the rain, but often soon after a rain. My question: Do you think the Inspire 1 can do this? Is there a better platform out there to do this? My desired outcome is a set of georeferenced 12 megapixel still photos with minimal distortion. Thank you for your input.

 

[IrishSights]

The Inspire will not do this at present, but it seems it is planned, but no time scale.

A cheaper option would be to use Phantom 2 with a GoPro fitted with a 5.4mm flat field lens and the DJI PC Ground Station product. You could even easily remove the IR back filter from the lens and you would have NIR capabilities.

I have this setup and produce georeferenced othomossaics in QGIS but not for agricultural work.

It does however take a bit more effort to put it together.

 

[airdrone]

[Quote = "IrishSights, post: 4657, medlems: 5113"] The Inspire vil ikke gjøre dette i dag, men det synes det er planlagt, men ingen tid skala.

Et billigere alternativ ville være å bruke Phantom 2 med et GoPro utstyrt med en 5.4mm flat felt objektivet og DJI PC Ground Station produktet. Du kan selv enkelt fjerne IR tilbake filter fra linsen og du ville ha NIR evner.

Jeg har dette oppsettet og produsere georefererte othomossaics i QGIS men ikke for landbruket arbeid.

Det gjør imidlertid ta litt mer innsats for å sette det sammen. [/ Quote]



Never gopro here. Gopro is a surf camera. Fair enough to begin to open up gopro and put on flat lens. Guarantee???. nonsense if you ask me. Inspire1 is stunningly beautiful to fly, the best you can get. Inspire1 is pageantry

 

[AlexanderAF]

Well you'd certainly want to be comfortable flying the drone first. It's not as easy as setting it on the ground and plotting a course. If a situation were to arise, you'd want to be able to get it back manually.

 

[IrishSights]

[Quote = "IrishSights, post: 4657, medlems: 5113"] The Inspire vil ikke gjøre dette i dag, men det synes det er planlagt, men ingen tid skala.

Et billigere alternativ ville være å bruke Phantom 2 med et GoPro utstyrt med en 5.4mm flat felt objektivet og DJI PC Ground Station produktet. Du kan selv enkelt fjerne IR tilbake filter fra linsen og du ville ha NIR evner.

Jeg har dette oppsettet og produsere georefererte othomossaics i QGIS men ikke for landbruket arbeid.

Det gjør imidlertid ta litt mer innsats for å sette det sammen. [/ Quote]



Never gopro here. Gopro is a surf camera. Fair enough to begin to open up gopro and put on flat lens. Guarantee???. nonsense if you ask me. Inspire1 is stunningly beautiful to fly, the best you can get. Inspire1 is pageantry

Lost in translation somewhat. It does not currently do waypoints or autonomous or even semi autonomous missions. My current method works well.

Gaurantee? I had a gopro repaired by gopro, i just put the original lens back in, they replaced it under warrenty.

You dont need to open a gopro hero 3+ black, its easy to fit 5.4mm lens. Only on this model or the equivilent gopro 4. I have done it with 2 gopros now. Dont underestimate the modified GoPro!

For my GIS projects it works, which is similar to what the OP wants to do. However the inspire is potentially a much better option, but its not there yet for this purpose. I was offering an alternative to the needs presented by the OP'er to do georferenced orthomossaics as the Inspire One currently does not offer waypoints or mission planner.

It will come. I am eagerly waiting

 

[Yves]

Hi, our Pixhawk-based UAVs will do exactly that with a GoPro Hero 3, 3+ or the new 4.

http://pxliteplus.bradatech.com/

The application runs on Android only (phone or tablet), has a telemetry radio with a range of 1/4 mile or so (using 915Mhz) however once you program your mission, the unit no longer requires connection to either the telemetry radio, or RC controller. It is fully autonomous.

You simply program your Gopro to snap shots every so many seconds.

The unit supports auto-takoff and auto-landing, however, once landed and disarmed, the UAV and camera will remain powered on. There's nothing we can do about that. The battery will simply drain in both.

Hope this helps,

Yves
Bradatech
Ottawa Canada

I do crop research in the midwest. I am NOT an RC pilot-and don't want to be one. In the past I have hired a Cessna 172 & pilot to do aerial photos of my plots, with good success. My goal is a fully automated typical flight like this: 1. The uav is sitting on the ground, being fully programed and locked on to satellites for the flight in the AP. 2. I hit the "start" or whatever button, it launches, goes to about 200 ft above the ground, hovers for a bit, and then heads straight east for 1500 ft, taking a straight down still photo every second or so. 3. At the end of the 1500 ft, it turns south for another 200 ft, then travels back coming straight west, and lands at the end of the strip, in a different location than it started. 4. The camera is then shut off. My goal is to have this SAME flight program and path repeated every few days thru the season, at different times of the day, always in good weather, never in the rain, but often soon after a rain. My question: Do you think the Inspire 1 can do this? Is there a better platform out there to do this? My desired outcome is a set of georeferenced 12 megapixel still photos with minimal distortion. Thank you for your input.

 

[CVIBob]

The Inspire will not do this at present, but it seems it is planned, but no time scale.

A cheaper option would be to use Phantom 2 with a GoPro fitted with a 5.4mm flat field lens and the DJI PC Ground Station product. You could even easily remove the IR back filter from the lens and you would have NIR capabilities.

I have this setup and produce georeferenced othomossaics in QGIS but not for agricultural work.

It does however take a bit more effort to put it together.

Thank You for the quick reply. In your setup, are the still photos geo-tagged automatically, or do you need to do some sort of post processing of the flight log and photo time stamp? Thanks Again- all the buzz here has me thinking a little more about the iris+, but it seems pretty daunting....

 

[Yves]

Iris+ also uses the Pixhawk FC however, it is a lightweight and underperforming platform for any kind of aerial survey work. Nylon/plastic props and skinny plastic struts just won't do in windy conditions.

Our platforms are carbon fiber and very rigid. Just as a heads-up, the DJI ground station hasn't evolved in years and is not adequate for photogrammetry needs (we used to be a DJI dealer but widthdrew because of this).

The following 3D survey/model was generated from photos taken using a GoPro, our PXLite Plus quadrotor and Pix4D mapper. However, we have had better results using AgiSoft which also generated the model in less time so we are working on getting dealer status with them.

Geo tagging the images is easy using the Mission Planner software and your mission log/file http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/co...on-planner/#Time_offset_picture_time_log_time


Here is the clip http://aerialsurveyclip.bradatech.com/

cheers

Yves

 

[IrishSights]

Thank You for the quick reply. In your setup, are the still photos geo-tagged automatically, or do you need to do some sort of post processing of the flight log and photo time stamp? Thanks Again- all the buzz here has me thinking a little more about the iris+, but it seems pretty daunting....

Bob, I had my gear before I got into surveys so it just developed for me. The dji Ground Station is quite old right enough and bit quirky to use but nevertheless it is sophisticated and very usable.

The GoPro does not georeference images. The vision+ does but from what I read its not accurate enough for mapping. I have no actual experience to confirm this. This works foe me...

My workflow is:
I create still frames with the optimum overlap from 4k 15fps video (about 8 mega pixel) taken from the Ground Station mission. If the overlap is not enough I can always resample from the video. It depends on environmental factors of the flight but I usually grab a frame every 3 or 4 seconds.

Then create the mossaic using Agisoft Photoscan. You could use the free Microsoft ICE.

I then import the tiff mossaic into QGIS. It has a free Georefrencer Plugin into which I load the tiff.

Then use recognisable Ground Control Points that I can match with the Bing base imagery, which is already georeferenced. For example I would pick a gate post or chimney that is visable in both tif and Bing base imagery and the plugin georferences that point in my tiff - a real cool Plugin.

I pick maybe 10, or as many as you like, ground points to match up. This is very accurate - the more you do.

From the plugin I save the now georferenced tif as a geotiff file. QGIS then overlays the image as a layer over tbe base Bing Imagery. Its actually surprisingly quick to do.

Photoscan Standard edition is good enough for this. QGIS is Open Source. I would alter the gamma and sometimes use colour substition on the video before writing out the frames. I had no need to buy any other software. You could do it completly using Open Source Software - accurately, at least for my archaeological purposes and probably yours too.

The NIR lens option would be good for you too.

David

 

[IrishSights]

To bring it back on topic...the Inspire will fly in much stronger winds, rated to 22mph I think. Also it will do 12 Mega pixel and fly a bigger area on a battery.