We need to survey about 23,000+ Hectares of agriculture land and wondering what drone options we got given
(a) We have to survey really large area and small amount of time.
(b) We need to scan whole area say 3-4 times in a 8 months, over the season of crop to record growth.
(c) RGB + NDVI camera is good enough for now.
(d) Drone which is easy to repair, as I am sure there will be many crashes during operations..
Would it make more sense for to assemble it our own given we would need bunch of them, and we would need quick turn around time in case of repair/crash...
Replies
I am currently looking at Event38's E384 (fixed wing aircraft), any reviews/feedback on using them? They seem to be able to do 1000 acres per flight in about 100 minutes...do we have anything faster available?
With the E384 you could cover 400 ha / flight (aprox. one hour of flight).
Then you land, change the SD card of the the cammera, airplane batteries, preflicght check, etc.... (not less than 45 min.) So you take one flight every 2 hours aprox. in 2 hours the sunlight changes enough to avoid two flight stitching... and probably the process have to be made flight by flight. If the weather conditions allow it you can do 3 or 4 flights / day.
1 flight = 400 ha ----- max 4 flights / day = 1600 ha. ----- 23.000 ha / 1.600 = 15 days of flight.
15 days of separation between images is too much for me... The Event is a nice plane, but you need more area / flight.
With a manned aircraft you flight 23.000 in one flight. 3 hours of sepparation between the first and the las image.
For that ammount of land to cover I think is the only rentable solution.
Also what do you think of deploying say 6-7 small sUAS (like E384) and running them in parallel, which would drastically reduce time it needs to cover. I am assuming flying them are not very hard and I can find or train some pilots quickly.
Thanks Martin. Have you used manned aircraft for surveying, where can i learn more about it, including cost of operations, setup etc.
RG,
For your project I would suggest a fixed wing, like the Precision Hawk "Lancaster" or a flying wing, like the SenseFly eBee.
To use a multi-copter would take much too long and require too many flights to be productive. Also you may want to consider using the PixHawk flight controller and APM "Mission Planner" as that combination will give you an excellent result for plotting your flights. Multiple Air frames and pilots may be necessary but you should calculate how much one Air frame can cover in Hectares in one day of flights and then make your decision as to if you will need more than one. You should consider getting some extra parts and electronics for those occasions that would require some repairs in the field. Good luck with your project.
Agreed, planning on fixed wing, but with so many options and variables was wondering which fixed wing option would be best here.
I can easily map over 400 Ha on a single flight with an APM equipped Skywalker. It is very durable and easy to repair in case you crash your plane. One of mine have mapped more than 27,000 HAs and still available for next project. I think it is the cheapest option, especially if you can build it yourself. This is important as it enable you to build more than one aircraft on a tight budget. With this scheme, you may fly more than one UAV at a time. Based on my experiences, it is easy enough to fly 3 UAVs at a time by 2 operators.
Thanks Wahono, can you share more, my email ruchit@harvesting.co
Where are you located?
This project in discussion is for India
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