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Local Government

Local Governments are responsible for physical assets such as buildings and structures, open spaces such as parks and gardens, local laws and bylaws, and infrastructure such as local roads and bridges. All of these can benefit from a drone inspection program. Some examples of the type of drone use cases that are relevant to Councils, are given below. Note: this is by no means an exhaustive list!

 

Physical Assets:

  • Periodical visual inspections of Council building facades and roofs. Drones can quickly provide detailed shots from all angles, without the inherent risks associated with working at heights. This information is extremely useful for scheduling when maintenance works are required.

  • “As-built” survey-grade 3D modelling of buildings, structures, and worksites (current and planned). This allows accurate measurements to be extracted from the model, which can be used for planning future works, or checking existing construction works against plans.

  • Periodical progress reporting of building construction works. Drones can capture the exact same shot at different periods of time, to allow “time-lapse” videos to be constructed.

 

Parks and Gardens:

  • An “orthomap”, or “orthophoto”, can be used to accurately document existing open spaces. An orthomap can also be used to extract survey-grade accurate measurements for planning purposes. An orthomap consists of multiple overlapping geo-referenced photos that have been geo-corrected to remove camera distortion, then stitched together into one large 2-dimensional image.

 

Local laws:

  • Sometimes Council receives complaints from ratepayers about excessive junkpiles in backyards, illegal unsafe constructions, and the like. Drones can be used to quickly provide visual feedback of the area in question, without needing to first obtain permission from the owner.

 

Roads and Bridges:

  • Detailed visual inspections of cracks and faults in bridges can be carried out quite effectively from all perspectives, by drones.

 

CDS Differentiators:

  • For inspections/surveillance/live events, CDS has the unique Drone-As-A-Service offering. This allows the client to control the drone in flight, by watching the real-time livestreamed camera feed, and commanding the pilot through a mobile phone call. Depending on the drone used, the client can also control the camera pan and tilt, themselves! See Drone-as-a-Service (DaaS)

  • For inspections/discreet photography/live events work, my DJI Matrice 300 RTK drone with H20T quad-sensor camera, has an amazing zoom capability (up to 200x) that allows tiny building details to be shown in high-resolution, or crystal clear photos of backyards to be taken from a distant, open location that facilitates perfectly safe, intrusion-free flying, even if the flight location is several km away from the area of interest! This guarantees that the drone can’t even be seen with the naked eye (or heard), from the area of interest.

  • My DJI Phantom 4 RTK drone is the industry standard drone for surveying work. Along with my D-RTK2 mobile base station or an NTRIP connection, this equipment allows photos to be geotagged with 1-2cm absolute positional accuracy, which is survey-grade!

  • My Pix4Dmapper software allows me to generate a variety of 2D and 3D outputs, including survey-grade 3D models, 2D orthomaps, etc. These can then be integrated into your GIS, as part of the buildup of your “digital twin” strategy.

  • For the ultimate flexibility when planning periodically repeated missions (eg, for construction progress reporting), my Matrice 300 drone is second-to-none. It offers;

    • Manually-flown complex missions can be recorded ad-hoc using Live Mission Recording.  This records flight path on-the-go, plus when and where photos and videos are taken from, which can be safely and easily recreated as an automated mission at anytime in future.

    • AI Spot Check further enhances Live Mission Recording, with the ability to edit the specific framing, zoom level and other features of photos to be taken on future flights.

    • Simpler missions can use basic waypoint flights that can be planned in advance of the mission, to create flight paths and actions to be taken at certain locations, which can be flown at anytime in future.

  • My Matrice 300 RTK drone is the ideal tool for surveying roads and bridges, as it comes with dual downward gimbals and a single upward gimbal. RTK positioning can be used to maintain positional accuracy whilst surveying underneath bridges, since GPS signals will probably be blocked by the bridge above! A top-mounted gimbal allows the top camera to have a clear view, even when looking vertically straight up at the underside of bridges. Dual visible and ToF sensors on all 6 sides of the drone are a new capability on DJI drones, meaning that collision avoidance in confined spaces is second-to-none!

  • Consultancy services: I can provide ad-hoc or contracted consulting services, to help you develop and/or refine your Drone Policy, and/or future strategy for Advanced Aerial Mobility (AAM). See Consultancy Services

  • Extensive surveying experience is also available via my Partner Network

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