Is This Viable?

Bret · May 3, 2017

Good morning! I have worked in the electric utility field for over 30 years and having recently obtaining my Part 107 certification, I have a vision of sorts. Vegetation management is a necessary and expensive item that many utilities have, especially the co-ops. Has anybody come across software that can detect vegetation growth (especially the height)? Is Solo a good platform for this? Or am I looking at another drone with a different camera setup? I am thinking one could follow the transmission distribution lines and create some good data sets, especially in the more remote or hard to get areas by land vehicle. Just checking to see what's out there or if anybody has already implemented such a program? Thank you in advance for you input!!

dorniiif · May 3, 2017

Bret said:
Good morning! I have worked in the electric utility field for over 30 years and having recently obtaining my Part 107 certification, I have a vision of sorts. Vegetation management is a necessary and expensive item that many utilities have, especially the co-ops. Has anybody come across software that can detect vegetation growth (especially the height)? Is Solo a good platform for this? Or am I looking at another drone with a different camera setup? I am thinking one could follow the transmission distribution lines and create some good data sets, especially in the more remote or hard to get areas by land vehicle. Just checking to see what's out there or if anybody has already implemented such a program? Thank you in advance for you input!!

Hey Bret - Check-out : (www.dronedeploy.com) Questions to ask: Is 3dr's "SOLO" compatible? (This App. has various levels of "USAGE" (i.e.- FREE , $99/mo. & $299/mo.) Let us know what you find out !!

Bret · May 3, 2017

dorniiif said:
Hey Bret - Check-out : (www.dronedeploy.com) Questions to ask: Is 3dr's "SOLO" compatible? (This App. has various levels of "USAGE" (i.e.- FREE , $99/mo. & $299/mo.) Let us know what you find out !!

Thanks! I will do.

RichWest · May 3, 2017

Great idea and application, b/millions of dollars spent yearly to control ROW vegetation. I'd imagine it is being done with some level of success. I'd venture off to anyone in the general ag business, more opportunity to recover development costs for such a system based on that market. I know Parrot had a winged uav for ag but is was more for crop health and using optical for a UV spectrum data.

Typical terms used; Lidar or ultrasonic sensors would be the common method to measure object distances. Both sensor tech are being applied to Solo currently, but it is mainly for flight control. So the tech works. How to extract the data for your application is the bigger question. I really think ArduPilot.org forum is where your answers could be found.

Actual visual calculation would need multiple visual passes for any level of accuracy. I think your end goal would be to acquire a reasonable amount of data to assess the condition in the least amount of time.

These utilities need to do themselves some favors for the available tech to help them reduce maintenance cost. A simple pole band or tag/target, say 4-5' off the ground, would be a great method to estimate the veg height using strictly a visual survey method. Hell, even a roofing nail could serve the same purpose, just need a high contrast color marker or pair. Asplen/Ozmose could apply when doing pole inspections....

.

Maxheadspace · May 3, 2017

Bret said:
Has anybody come across software that can detect vegetation growth (especially the height)? Is Solo a good platform for this? Or am I looking at another drone with a different camera setup?

DroneDeploy has a number of pay-for-service sub-apps that do a variety of vegetation functions, like count the number of corn plants in a field. The problem with Solo for these uses is the lack of GPS metadata in the photos. To add the GPS data there are some manual steps involved that make it tedious, especially for commercial purposes. DroneDeploy will work with the Solo photos, but you have to add the GPS info before submitting. Not saying it can't be done, but for the uses you're describing I think you would really want to have automatic geotagging, and Solo won't do it. DroneDeploy is pretty much "plug-and-play" with DJI drones, even the cheap Phantom 3 Standard.

Ed Beck · May 7, 2017

Bret said:
especially in the more remote or hard to get areas by land vehicle.

This is the part of your idea that I'm a little concerned about.

Once you put a gimbal on Solo the total flight time gets cut to about 20 minutes with precious little battery left at landing. Success depends on just how remote you're talking about. The longer it takes the drone to get on station the less viable this is.

I should say this is true for just about any drone in the same size class as Solo.

Another thing to be aware of is that there's a good chance you'd loose contact with the controller while flying this. This is assuming that you're taking off an landing in a grove or something where trees will get in the way of your signal. Under default conditions Solo will return to home when the controller signal is lost.

This is easily fixed by using Tower to plan and fly the missions. Before taking off set the FS_THR_ENABLE parameter to "2" to continue the mission if controller signal is lost. Solo will continue the programmed mission. Adding the takeoff and landing site to the mission will ensure Solo returns to you.

IMPORTANT: When setting this parameter make sure you have enough battery for the flight time, which Tower will estimate for you. If you loose contact and Solo continues the mission until it gets to the battery fail safe I can't say if it will make it home or not.

amosea · May 25, 2017

Only veering very slightly off topic. I just saw this: OSEPP Ultrasonic Sensor and wondered how much work it might be to incorporate a DIY solution for use on the Solo that would be of any real world benefit. I'm thinking those of you who do know are going to say it's waaaay too much work (needs software etc.) and wouldn't be of too much use in reality...right? Apologize if it's so ignorant a question, just got this layman curious.

andrew.baker.142 · May 26, 2017

These sensors are for very short range measurements. Would be useless in this application.
There are some other very capable LIDAR sensors that would work great (about $150), but you would need to run Arducopter Master on a green cube in Solo. Very doable though.