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9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Autonomous Accurate Mapping from drones
DroneMetrex Company Profile
DroneMetrex Pty Ltd is a company specialising in the autonomous data acquisition, near real-time data feeds, and accurate survey and photogrammetric mapping information services from “Drones”. This provides alternative solutions to costly data acquired from aircraft or similar airborne and/or vehicular platforms over areas that are not economically justified to be captured by such large aircraft, or may be difficult and/or dangerous for “manned” aircrafts or vehicles or ground survey teams. With our TopoDrone UAV’s, we can confidently claim that we are producing truly accurate mapping data – the most accurate mapping data from a commercial UAV system in the world! 25mm accuracy – reliably, repeatedly, accurately.
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Our Drone Mapping Systems are autonomous (“self determining”)
Fly preprogrammed routes via autopilot & telemetry
Autopilot firmware coded for photogrammetric precision mapping
True accurate mapping systems (photogrammetric)
Rapid data acquisition and delivery
Safe & reliable
Can fly under clouds and in strong winds
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
UNIQUE FEATURES OF DRONEMETREX
Built and integrated in Australia. We are LOCAL. We have not brought in some drone with a camera attached, built who-knows-where and designed primarily for taking paparazzi photos – and then called it a mapping system! We have started from fundamental accurate photogrammetric mapping principles – and designed, integrated and built our Drone Mapping Systems (TopoDrones) specifically for accurate, repetitive, reliable mapping. Serviced, maintained and upgraded in Australia in our premises. If a hardware component or some software needs maintenance or upgrade – it is performed here locally. No waiting for European or US time zones, nor their priorities!!
Over 25-year successful experience in mapping and related activities within the fields of quality aerial photography, LiDAR and photogrammetric mapping ensure that our flying team and processing and mapping team have the experience and resourcefulness to produce mapping products that we are proud to qualify and confident to deliver.
Our Team consists of highly tertiary qualified Engineering Photogrammetrists, Surveyors, and very experienced Drone specialists. We also work in a Strategic Alliance with Mincham Aviation for Aeronautical Engineering design and manufacture issues of components to ensure that our Drone Mapping Systems are designed to fly “true and steady” mapping flight lines with the performance and payloads required for accurate mapping.
CASA UAV Operator’s Certificate # 1-WLT9P-01. Dronemetrex has the legal permissions under the Australian Government’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to Build, Operate, Maintenance and Training of our TopoDrones.
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGES OF DRONEMETREX
DroneMetrex has integrated and commercialised TopoDrones. Break-through technology of the future... at your service now! The TopoDrones were developed from the photogrammetric solution and then configured to an airframe. Many others have tried the reverse – find an airframe and try to adapt the drone to photogrammetry – and will always fail in quality and accuracy! DroneMetrex has coded our own autopilot photogrammetric flight control software for our TopoDrones. This means that the autonomous flight paths, the camera exposure stations and our “active camera gimbal” are all rigorously controlled by our autopilot photogrammetry commands to ensure optimal accuracy.
Has developed highly competitive rates in terms of quality output and ability to meet deadlines without compromising on accuracy. Ground Surveying and Traditional Aircraft aerial mapping, are both comparatively more expensive and more time consuming for the mapping process and final output deliverables. Our technology developments have given us the advantages of ease of operations, short on-site times, and rapid automated processing for superior mapping data – with significant cost-savings to our customers.
Minor on-site intrusion with rapid response and wide range of flying conditions. Because our TopoDrones can fly in winds up to 50km/h and under clouds, and because the data capture process is non-intrusive to the project site, we have dramatically increased the productivity, data reliability and reduced the costs.
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
TECHNICAL ADVANTAGES OF DRONEMETREX
Patent-pending DMX-GAM (Gyro-stabilised Active Mount). For rigorous and accurate photogrammetric mapping data it is essential that all components of the drone system are designed and operate to eliminate possible metric error sources right from the first photo to the last. Additionally, any drone will fly in accordance with the natural aviation physics – which means tip, tilt and yaw of the airframe during flight as the air thermodynamic forces effect. So unless compensated for, a rigid camera body within any drone airframe will naturally produce photos of the ground with the effects of tip, tilt and yaw impressed on the raw images – which effectively means distortion and hence a significant metric error source for mapping. DroneMetrex has developed its own DMX-FMS (Photogrammetric Flight and Sensor Control Management) integrated to the autopilot. Each photo is captured as nadir (pointing vertically downwards regardless of the tip and tilt of the airframe) because our DMX-FMS controls the movement of the “active gimbal” to counter-react and compensate for the airframe tips and tilts. Furthermore, the side wind effect of yaw (along flight rotation) is actively compensated so that each and every photo taken is parallel to the mapping direction, regardless of the flight direction, drone body movements, and wind effects – even up to 50 km/h winds!
DMX-GAM (Gyro-stabilised Active Mount)
No DMX-GAM
Rigorous High Quality Poor measurements & accuracy
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Own autopilot software for mapping
Flying a drone airplane for mapping requirements is completely different to flying for simple photos, videos or recreation. The flying parameters of the airframe, as well as the camera system and GPS onboard, needs to be programed and function to perfect synchronization for later accurate measurement processing. Our autopilot-integrated DMX-MPS (Photogrammetry Mission Planning) interface software accounts for the terrain height variations, the wind conditions, the camera/GPS synchronization, and the optimum flight lines with imagery overlap for highest possible measurement accuracy.
Follows the terrain heights
Controls the “active camera gimbal” compensation
Ensures each photo is captured with the predetermined overlap, both forward and side
Records the GPS synchronization of exact photo coordinates with camera shutter to nanosecond precision
Via telemetry, accurately guides the drone for photogrammetric autonomous flying
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
High quality photogrammetric lens with FMC & LMC
The fundamental to high detail imagery and high accuracy measurements and mapping is the camera lens. We use a very high quality lens which we calibrate for redial and tangential geometric distortions. Furthermore, DroneMetrex has developed its own unique Forward Motion Compensation (FMC) and Lateral Motion Compensation (LMC) for the camera system, and matched to our autopilot-controlled “active camera gimbal” mount, we minimize image motion blur and thus increase the measurement accuracy – absolutely essential for accurate mapping from low-flying drones! There is no Drone Mapping system in the world that can match our unique (patent pending) solution for accurate mapping.
High quality photogrammetric lens
Geometric precision
Lens calibration
FMC & LMC eliminate blur and increase geometric precision
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Developed very sophisticated automated processing algorithms for rapid yet accurate digital processing of drone aerial imagery and mapping. This allows DroneMetrex to use very little manpower but large computing resources.
Our own DMX-P4 software for per-pixel-photogrammetric-preprocessing: absolutely essential for accurate mapping to rigorously process the image distortion errors from low-flying drones with digital cameras! Every digital camera system on drones is encumbered with pixel geometry errors because of the natural aeronautical physics of “aggressive” flight characteristics of a small drone. Added to this is the errors of electronic “jitter” of pixel recording on digital cameras. Only a rigorous per-pixel processing via known and tagged distortions can eliminate these errors. No “Cloud processing” can achieve this, because the errors are unknown. The TopoDrone-100 system, along with the DroneMetrex DMX-P4 processing, records, accounts for and eliminates these errors in a rigorous photogrammetric method to achieve unrivaled mapping accuracy from our Drone Mapping System.
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
We have intelligently adapted the mapping digital workflow and use specific drone photogrammetry software. We have developed our own in-house “cloud processing centre” – because we understand the inputs and measurement outputs, and we ensure the mathematical rigor. The generated 3D point cloud data is 100 times denser than LiDAR!!
Finally, we are able to “human” validate the data accuracy with 3D stereo viewing. Rigorous
photogrammetrically-correct stereo imagery from the Drone! Ready for accurate 3D mapping.
This also allows us to provide additional stereo “heads-up” 3D data capture such a breaklines or in fact any asset feature in the high resolution imagery – all to mm’s precision!
Topodrone-100 airframe advantage
Stability – 2M wingspan
“Flying Wing” design for efficient aerodynamics and less influence of cross winds
Largest payload cargo area to enable “active gimbal” and hi-resolution photogrammetric camera lens
Manufactured from EPO (Expanded PolyOlefin) the drone body is strong yet absorbs force of impacts. It is durable and returns to its original form.
Launch and land regardless of terrain
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
The TopoDrone Mapping advantage
We have designed our Topodrone Accurate Mapping systems to counter the ever-present geometric errors introduced through the natural physics of flight from a small airframe with a camera system. Any such drone flights will produce rapid and aggressive movements of the camera array in tip, tilt and yaw – plus forward and side image motion. If these movements are not eliminated during image capture then this will translate to large random errors which no amount of post-processing software can rigorously solve! Therefore most current drone mapping systems will at best only achieve a metre or sub-metre accuracy. And a further deficiency of such systems are that one can’t even predict when such accuracies may be achieved from the flight sortie – and such errors can even be twice as large!
DroneMetrex has developed the TopoDrones for very accurate photogrammetric mapping. As a core design, we have eliminated the errors with our “active camera gimbal” specifically programmed to counter airframe movements through our autopilot photogrammetric software control. Additionally, we have addressed the forward motion and side motion compensation of image capture.
So for mapping, you start the input with a near-nadir, no-crab, motion-blur-less image. Isn’t this the fundamental input for any accurate photogrammetric mapping?
Other “so-called” UAV mapping systems have taken accurate mapping back 50 years to the early days of photogrammetry! They only produce pictures. Big Deal!! DroneMetrex with the TopoDrones takes you forward the next 50 years. Autonomous accurate mapping from drones! 25mm accuracy!
True photogrammetric mapping – reliably, repeatedly, accurately!
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
High resolution, accurate orthophotos – seamlessly mosaicked
The sensible base for your GIS for measurement, monitoring, and human verification.
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Accurate DTM and contours
Our Digital Terrain Model (DTM) heights are generated from massive redundancy of point matching based upon the high overlapping accurate imagery. This provides for the highest density of feature measurement, with no obscured or “hidden” areas as is the case with ground surveying. The DTM is not derived from course profiles but from very dense point clouds 100 times denser than LiDAR.
The contours are naturally more accurate and truly representative of the terrain.
Additionally, they can always be independently verified by human 3D viewing and measurement. Other measurement technologies do not have this capability.
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Volumes and profiles
Readily computed in the office
Irrefutable evidence and accuracy
Detailed of the WHOLE structure, not just samples
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Wall deformation mapping
Because our TopoDrones are programmed to fly with high overlap of imagery, it enables us to generate the detailed ortho imagery draped over the DTM to provide accurate measurement and monitoring of walls or other structures – without dangerous human access in the close proximity.
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Precise Civil works mapping to 25mm height
Our Topodrone-100 Drone Mapping System enables us to provide rapid and very accurate corridor mapping for civil works such as road corridors for example.
Example 2km road corridor 150m width: 3cm contours – 25mm accuracy heights
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Road corridor mapping – before built for planning: as-built for verification
TopodDrones photogrammetry provides very dense point-cloud 3D measurements of EVERY pixel
100 times denser than LiDAR; 10,000 times denser than ground surveying samples
Rapid collection and measurement results – 20km/day
Detailed seamless orthophoto map and dense DTM/contours rapidly provided
Any and every asset feature can be mapped in the office!
Survey height checks
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Drainage mapping & analysis
The very dense and accurate DTM and contours from our TopoDrones enable us to readily generate an accurate Drainage Network Analysis – a statistical and visual tool to assist design and management.
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Web Service
DroneMetrex has developed its own WEB GIS Service. This enables clients in remote locations to IMMEDIATELY access their data, measurements and mapping via the internet and secure encryption.
Immediate access to processed data via on-line
Tools for viewing, measuring
3D views and fly-through
Ability to overlay client’s own GIS data
Additional function of temporal and historical data overlay and comparison
Easy access for Client, Client’s staff, Client’s clients.
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
Near Infra red for vegetation monitoring – Environmental, Vineyards, Farming, Disasters
The TopoDrones can be flown with a camera that also records the near infrared wavelength. This is important for vegetation assessment and monitoring.
Environmental monitoring
Vineyard and agricultural yield mapping
Enhanced Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (ENDVI)
We have created a new way to analyze vegetation and other objects using visible blue, visible green and near infrared data. Traditionally, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) NDVI uses only red and near infrared data. NDVI used these bands historically because that was what was available back in the old Kodak Color Infrared (CIR) film days, which surprisingly then dictated the original “Landsat” satellite bands and processing. Today, the Kodak film is long discontinued. Satellites have the same physical atmospheric restriction today as the first “earth observation” satellites – that is, they MUST pass through 50km of atmosphere – and up to double if “side looking”. Our atmosphere is a very absorptive medium for many wavelengths and will always be the limiting factor for more sensitive IR band capture and measurement. Digital cameras in a drone respond differently to light than film, especially in the infrared regions. And drone-captured data flown very low to the earth obviously has much less atmospheric attenuation and absorption of discreet band data than from aerial planes, and massively more sensitive that satellite data.
The traditional NDVI measurement uses the formula:
The traditional NDVI formula uses the blue channel for the NIR because the Kodak had created a special kind of color infrared film where the blue crystals could respond to blue or infrared light while the red and green crystals only responded to visible light. By using a visible blue light blocking filter, the user
NDVI = (NDVI − Red)
(NDVI + Red
)
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
could capture an image where Blue = NIR, Green = Visible Green, and Red = Visible Red. The red channel was used instead of the green since the green channel would also reflect light while the red channel absorbed light spectrum when taking images of vegetation. The key is that you need a NIR plant reflective channel and a visible plant absorption channel.
Digital cameras respond differently. The main issue to understand is that one requires the camera to have near infrared and visible bands in separate channels. Once the NIR band is isolated in a color channel, you can perform NDVI type measurements. With our NDVI cameras, the blue and green channels are sensitive to visible light while the red is sensitive to the NIR. Thus, the NDVI formula can be re-written for these cameras as:
The blue channel for our NDVI can be used equally as well for the visible absorption channel as the Kodak film used the red as the visible absorption channel.
We have found that one can get even better results if you use the red and green as the reflective channels while using the blue as the absorption channel. Remember that a normal healthy plant will reflect both visible green light and NIR light. We can improve on the NDVI formula for these cameras by changing the formula:
This ENDVI formula sums the NIR and Green channels together for the reflective channel. The Blue channel is multiplied by two to compensate for the NIR and Green channels being summed together.
Near Infra Red Enhanced NDVI
Post bushfire disaster mapping
NDVI = (NIR − Blue)
(NIR + Blue
)
ENDVI = ((NIR + Green) − (2 × Blue))
((NIR + Green) + (2 × Blue)
)
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023 Australia Tel: +61 (0)8 8243 1280 | Fax: +61 (0)8 8243 128 | E-mail: [email protected]
www.dronemetrex.com
ABN: 45147724981
APPLICATIONS
Mining Industry – weekly and safely
Refuse and quarries – economically
Civil works – rapidly and accurately
Environmental monitoring – authoritative and GIS-ready data
Agriculture and Wine industry – rapid info for reactive benefits
Post Disaster mapping – Insurance validation
With the clever integration of automated guidance technology, plus sophisticated Inertial Motion Units (IMU) and GPS controlling the advanced sensors, DroneMetrex captures high resolution data using pre-programmed, autonomous flights. Different advanced sensors can be deployed on board the drones, depending upon the information required, and then the data is processed using rigorous photogrammetric and remote sensing algorithms with modern point-cloud computing architecture to provide accurate, high resolution geo-referenced mapping products – rapidly and economically!
9A Crittenden Rd., Findon, SA 5023
Australia www.dronemetrex.com Ph: +61(0)8 8243 1280
Autonomous Accurate Mapping from drones