We have just completed a pioneer project with Dr Chue Poh Tan from ETH university, Zurich for her postdoctoral research on tropical rain forest biomass estimation with low cost UAV.
Flying in the middle of dense tropical rain forest is very challenging. Looking for a suitable takeoff and landing site is almost "mission impossible". But we are blessed with a team of highly knowledgeable forestry department staff lead by a senior officer. Finally we have two site to lunch the UAV.
I'm using my Skywalker base UAV with the same configuration as this, But I have upgrade it with the APM 2.5 and ublox GPS and 2.73 firmware. The new navigation controller is really amazing. My plane now trace perfectly along the grid line. It also hold altitude better than previous version. I'm totally happy with my current set up and a big thank you for the arduplane development team.
The real challenge of flying in forest is definitely landing. Although we may have a suitable site for landing but it is all surround by tall trees. The window for approaching is very narrow. Most of the time we have to do a steep dive to lose altitude once the plane pass those tall tree.
We fly a total of 8 mission in three difference area including one using a modify near infra red camera. There are a few thousands geo-ref image waiting for the Doctor to analyse. I think she will be busy for sometime.
Here I share the tlog from one of the mission and you can see how well the new controller is.
Comments
Hi Uttam
Have a look at here, It may be your solution for accuracy provided you have the budget.
We use Canon S100 camera with build in GPS. Every images it take had GPS info in it's Exif file. I am using Agisoft with good result. If you want sub meter accuracy, then ground control point will be needed.
Hi Jul
Nice to meet you here. You can contact me via e mail intrajasa@gmail.com. Good to know someone here in Sabah also using UAV.
Hi Abdullah
Sepilok Forest Reserve is one of the study area of Dr Tan. I have a set of RGB aerial images of the 160 Ha study plot. Currently our drone can only carry a normal point and shoot camera, in my case, a Canon S100GPS which is about 200 gram.
Dr Tan also want Lidar data for that area but the cost to acquire Lidar data is very expensive ( few hundred thousand RM ) so we are looking into the possibility to use light weight Lidar sensor, put it in a multirotor and fly the area. The sensor we are looking at is http://www.velodynelidar.com/lidar/hdlproducts/hdl32e.aspx.
You can contact me via e mail, intrajasa@gmail.com. Thanks
Hi Encik Abdullah
Great to meet Sabahan here. The plane can fly about 40 minutes but we usually set our mission time to 30 minutes to have some margin. I'll soon upgrade the power system to fly for 75 minutes. This will greatly increase the productivity.
Hi Ned, Dr CP Tan can be reach via email : chue.tan@usys.ethz.ch. I've told her about your request. Please feel free to contact her for more info about her research.
Hi LanMark, In such a restricted and narrow available open space, parachute landing may end up hanging on those tall tree.
Hi Ned, as far as I know, she just start this research not long ago. But if you want to contact her for further info, pls PM me.
This looks like fun. I'm also interested in forest biomass estimation using low cost photographic systems. Do you know if Dr. Chue Poh Tan has any reports she can share or if she has published any of her work?
Looks great, Keeyen.
couldn't you do the parachute sort of landing.. I have seen a number of people doing that for landing their plane.
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