With every company having a different need our prices change from project to project.  Flying a drone over 100 acres takes longer than 5 acres.  Requesting 3 services to be performed on the same day is less than those same 3 services done individually over 3 weeks.  There will always be one and done situations but we are about building relationships so our pricing is fair.

Our mapping workhorse is the DJI Phantom 4 Pro V2.  With a mechanical shutter, motion blur is limited during data capture therefore improving the  photogrammetry process.  Videos, Photos and Panoramas are also captured with this drone.

Thermal Inspections are done with the DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced(M2EA).  The M2EA provides us with a high resolution thermal, 640 x 512 as well as a 48 megapixel rgb(traditional), zoom camera

Ground Control Points are set using the Emlid RS2 GNSS Receivers.

In an attempt to keep this short here is the simple answer.  Most Drones’ GPS systems are about as accurate as the phone in your pocket.  Therefore in an attempt to create a more accurate map precise locations are marked with GNSS receivers within the project boundaries.  These locations(Lat, Long and Elevation) are mark with an X, a 2×2 square checkerboard or possibly a manhole cover, anything that can be seen by the drone and will not be disturbed while the drone is gathering data.  Photos along with the GCP coordinates are uploaded to the photogrammetry software.  The output is corrected with the help of the GCP coordinates that were obtained.  More info about GCPs can be found HERE.

A way to think of this is using a dart board.  If I throw 3 darts and they are in a tight cluster anywhere other than the Bullseye we could say that I was Relatively Accurate.  If 3 are throw and all are in the Bullseye, that would be Absolute Accuracy.  With land that would be where is my project EXACTLY on Earth?