Unmanned Aerial Surveys

UAS refers to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to capture aerial data via a range of different sensors such as RGB (red, green and blue) or multispectral cameras and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) payloads.

With UAVs we provide projects and businesses with aerial surveys and allied survey services, assisting them with their day-to-day operations. This is a rapidly developing sector, and we continuously upgrade and invest in aircraft, sensors and software to ensure that we stay at the forefront of technology and offer our clients the best-possible solutions.

Our chief pilot or one of our base pilots will discuss your project requirements to enable design of a fit-for-purpose solution for your project. Safety is our priority, and a thorough risk assessment is completed to ensure compliance with site conditions, local regulations, Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) restrictions and our ability to maintain safe distances from the public. We are highly experienced in applying for permits to fly in restricted airspace and only fly tried and tested aircraft with multiple levels of redundancy.

Survey planning includes ground control requirements, mission parameters such as overlap, altitude, safe take-off and landing positions, and fit-for-purpose sensors. The importance of the coordinate reference system cannot be overstated: we ensure that our surveys tie in with clients’ existing survey information and local grid or national survey datum.

Survey data can be uploaded from the field to enable cloud processing for same-day or one-day turnarounds.

UAS enable acquisition of data about complex and difficult-to-access environments in an efficient way. Derived products can include high-resolution orthomosaics, 3D reality mesh models, digital terrain models including digital surface models (DSM) and digital elevation models (DEM) and vector drawings, videos, flythroughs, inspection stills, volume calculations, and condition assessments.

• Capture of data in previously inaccessible or hard-to-access areas such as close to buildings or telecommunication towers, narrow streets, beneath bridges or inside sport stadiums.
• Significant reduction of field time and survey costs – capturing topographic data with a drone can be several times faster than land-based methods and requires reduced manpower.
• Collection of digital data far exceeding the detail possible with single-point survey instruments such as total stations and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) survey equipment. One UAV flight alone can produce thousands of measurements that can be represented in different formats such as point clouds, orthomosaics, DTMs, DSMs and contours.
• Mapping of areas without placing personnel in harm’s way – this means railway lines, roads and sites can be surveyed without closures or shutdowns; and
• Recent advancements in technology and software have made same-day turnarounds of survey data and volumetric reports possible, as well as real-time inspections.

Land Surveys has a wide range of drones and different sensors, including 100MP full frame cameras where mm-resolution is required and top-end LiDAR where accurate ground data is required.

We have long-endurance vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) platforms that can capture large areas in a single flight. And we have smaller multi-rotor platforms capable of carrying different sensors, capable of flying in adverse weather conditions and able to operate in confined spaces and/or close to structures.

Land Surveys’ people and their collective skills and experience are the company’s strongest asset. This is readily seen across a range of functions including aerial surveying, flight planning, photogrammetry, 3D-modelling, LiDAR processing, and research and development activities.