We are an Aussie based start up with a 20 year history in traditional aerial survey with both helicopter and fixed wing platforms. We are also a CASA licensed UAV operation with our own custom made products.
We have been using Android and IOS devices for aerial mapping for a variety of projects and thought it would be a cool idea to open up some of our tech services for free.
Survmatic Falcon for Android start screen:
Our aim is to make mapping real time by strapping a wireless network connected Android or IOS device to anything that flies. Images captured are time, date and gps stamped in exif.
The Falcon app has restrictions to when an image can be taken by allowing the device to check tilt and altitude values set by you before it triggers e.g if above 200 feet and less than 5 degrees tilt = trigger ,we implemented these features to reduce off target images especially in the turns, We also created a "servo to bluetooth" trigger to allow an autopilot to trigger our app.
Survmatic Falcon settings screen:
We have also created a cloud based back end for users to display their images post flight. In addition to the image display we also grab the Survmatic Falcon flight file to reply the flight, this is done both post and in real time depending on the level of service needed. We currently collect images in real time and have them ready for processing before we get back to the office.
Survmatic Falcon cloud service:
We are looking for beta testers to try the application out! so let me know and I can send you the APK for Android, we have the IOS app in alpha and will be released in time.
In case you are wondering what is in it for us, we expect that some users may want extra services in regard to image stitching and further DSM's etc, this is where we feel we can add value.
Please join the beta group here :
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/survmatic-falcon
Apply to join the group and click on the playstore link in the welcome/getting started post.
cheers
Team Survmatic
Comments
Randy : We developed a bluetooth module to handle the triggering as well, the module connects into any autopilot radio etc which the triggers our app, we will have this available as well.
We have used a few different Android devices for our commercial version, we like the Galaxy camera but have had cool results with cheaper phone based cams. This game changes rapidly as Android based imaging devices start to proliferate. the writing has been on the wall for many years with many camera manufacturers adopting an android strategy,
Survmatic,
That's pretty interesting. Tridge from the dev team (plane) believes that eventually most cameras will become android based so while the selection of android cameras may be limited now it's sure to grow. Do you have a recommended camera or phone?
Do you think it might be possible to make the cameras app communicate with the flight controller via MAVLink (serial)? If yes we could think about some closer integration with ArduCopter and Plane.
Very cool. I can see many uses for this.
Added a sign up form so we can keep track!
https://survmatic.wufoo.com/forms/zwn2rzt02cm3oc/
Sign me up as well.
Well done you! Sign me up.
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