Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) 

Drones, What are they Good For?

January 10 , 2017

Peter Keum - WTD GIS Specialist

peter.keum@kingcounty.gov

  1. Introduction of sUAV

  2. Regulations - FAA & King County

  3. Application Examples

small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (sUAS) System

Short Back Story

David Shean "Ice Man"

CUGOS April 2014

"Google Guys"

  • Economical
  • Easy to use
  • Quality data collection
  • Consistency/accuracy

Why Now?

Cell Phone Technology + Lower $$

  • Electronic Control System (ECS)
  • Accelerometer & Gyroscope Chip
  • GPS Chip
  • Lithium Polymer (LiPo) Battery
  • Motors

UAV - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

FAA Definition: Unmanned Aircraft (UA) system that is operated by a pilot via ground control or on-board computer. 

UAS Categories

Small  

  • Size: 1 - 2 meters ( 3 ft - 6.5 ft), < 55 lbs. 
  • Control: Visual line of sight, Radio control
  • DJI Phamtom, 3DR - Solo, Insitu - ScanEagle

Medium 

  • Size: Equivalent to a car, ~ 1000 lbs.
  • Control: Visual Line Of Sight (VLOS) & Beyond LOS, RC & Satellite
  • General Atomics -MQ1 Predator 

Large  

  • Size: > 30,000 lbs. 
  • Control: Visual Line Of Sight (VLOS) & Beyond LOS, RC & Satellite
  • Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk ~$222 Million

UAS

Unmanned Aerial Systems "Drone"

sUAS as Platform

Multi-rotors

Fixed wings

  • Short flight time (< 20min)
  • Cover small area
  • Highly maneuverable
  • Less expensive
  • Access confined spaces more easily
  • Long flight time
  • Covers large area
  • Larger selection of sensors

 Sensors

Multi-spectral 

Thermal Infrared

Lidar Camera

High resolution digital camera

Workflow

1. Aircraft + Sensor        (Data Collection)

2. Data Processing

3. Information Products

=
+

SfM - Structure from Motion

  • Agisoft PhotoScan - St Petersburg, Russia
    • $3500 - Professional Edition
    • $180 - Standard Edition
  • Bunder - Open Source  
    • Linux installation, free to download
  • Pix4D - Lausanne, Switzerland
    • $8700 - Professional Edition
    • Rent Option
      • $350 /month 
      • $3500 / year
  • DroneDeploy - Cloud Based Integrated Solution 
    • Image Processing for any drone

FAA Regulations - Where are we now?

Hobby/Recreation

  • Self register (over 13 yrs old)

  • Fly under 400 feet above ground level

  • Not to fly < 5 nautical miles around airport

  • Aircraft < 55 lbs.

  • Fly during daytime

  • Fly visual line of sight ( VLOS)

Commercial/Governmental

  1. Section 333 Exemption
  2. COA - Certificate of Weaver or Authorization
  3. SAC - Special Airworthiness Certificates
  4. To control/fly - FAA commercial pilot license holder

sUAV Operation - Part 107, July 2016

Commercial/Governmental

sUAV Operation - FAA Part 107 Rule, July 2016

  • Have FAA Remote Pilot Certification

  • as of Jan 2017 - 20,488 active remote pilot,  WA - 644

  • Fly under 400 feet above ground level

  • Not to fly < 5 nautical miles around airport

  • Aircraft < 55 lbs.

  • Fly during daytime

  • Fly visual line of sight ( VLOS)

  • No flight over non-participating people

King County WTD

"Subject: WTD Policies on Use of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Drones)

Managers/Supervisors:

I’d like you to share the following policy guidance regarding the use of drones for work purposes with your staff as appropriate. The guidance specifically addresses the use of drones classified as small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS[1]), which weigh less than 55 lbs."

  • No owning or operating drones by WTD
  • Manager/Supervisor review and require Division Director approval
  • 3rd Party to meet KC Risk Management requirements

Application Examples

Why Drone Aerial?

  • Give Temporal Resoution
    • Fly more often
    • Monitor continous changes
    • High Spatial resolution
  • More Data > More Knowledge > Better Decisions

UAVs are just another tools in the toolbox

Help decision makers with appropriate analytic information product

Workflow Example 1

Whidbey Island, Langley Downtown example

Aaron Racicot

Step 1. Flight with Data Collection

Step 2. Data Processing

  1. QGIS to georeference aerial imagery export to tiff file
  2. Using GDAL
  3. Or use mbutili to export into tiles
gdal2tiles.py --profile=mercator -z 1-22 yourmap.tif outputfolder

Step 3. Information Product 1

  • Create web-map using GitHub's gh-page
git checkout gh-pages
git add outputfolder
git commit -m "Yes... TILE DATA"
git push

Step 3A. Information Product 2

  • Using imagery to digitize street, add features to OSM
http://langleywa.github.io/gisdata/tiles/langley-2nd-street-2014-tms/{z}/{x}/{y}.png
  • Add below url into OpenStreetMap iD Editor

Workflow Example 2

KC Brightwater Treatment Plant

(odor control) &

KC Cedar River Revetment 

(river bank protection)

3D Modeling

PhotoScan Sparse Point Cloud

Dense Point Cloud

Textured Mesh

Flying Brightwater TP Odor Control Units

Result

Cedar River Revetment

Video

Cedar River Revetment

Pumps

More to Learn

  • Understanding various platforms and sensors

  • Various software packages to process captured data

  • Various flying techniques for capturing aerial data

  • Pass FAA Remote Pilot Airman Certificate

END

for now

Thank You!!!

peter.keum@kingcounty.gov

Resources:

Video 2 - fail 

Trailers

Video 3 - accident

Video 4 - bevement embankment

Pix4D - castle

Pix4D - Statue