Mapping Kelp Beds Around Puget Sound Islands

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Sup Dudes and Dudettes,

Mapping/Survery work interests the hell out of me, and essentially drove me to getting into copters in the first place after flying RC Planes for some time.

That said, I don't know much about mapping. I built a 3DR Y6 running Pixhawk and a Canon S100, have flown it plenty, and have mapped a couple small parks for fun and just to see if I could.

A good friend is in school for environmental studies, wetlands management etc, and has some capstone field work coming up this summer. He will be working for the Samish Indian Res on behalf of Island County, WA, measuring the fluctuation in size of kelp beds around Fidalgo Island. His field work will require launching a small boat with two passengers (himself included), transiting to the target kelp beds, circling the kelp beds in the boat while dropping waypoints on some rudimentary GPS gear, then loading the data into some GIS systems at home plate upon his return. He estimates his time in the field taking anywhere from two to four hours. His product will be numbers only measurements of kelp bed size based on the GPS points recorded.

As he is explaining this, I think back to all the use cases I've heard of for drones. The "Three D's" warranting Drone use - "If it's Dull, Dirty, or Dangerous, send in the Drone." This field work has it all - it's time consuming, it's potentially hazardous with dynamic weather patterns and sea state here in the islands, and it's certainly dirty. Sounds like a perfect use case for Drone work.

Assuming there is access to the shoreline where the kelp beds are located, it very well could eliminate the time and risks associated with transiting a small watercraft around the coastal waterways, alleviating risk and cutting out substantial time.

Then the product. As it stands, the boat and hand clicker method results in numbers only. With the use of a Drone the product could be a high resolution visual aid from which one could take measurements to determine kelp bed size, as well as make numerous other observations - kelp density, potential inhabitants, etc.

I want to go play with my bird on some local kelp beds just for proof of concept.

I am dropping this info here to incite any recommendations or words of wisdom.

What I foresee being the workflow:

With knowledge of my general location, I'll load overhead imagery onto Tower on my Wifi only Samsung Tab, roll over to the beach, based on landmarks and coastal features, assess the location of the kelp bed, create a mission on the spot with plenty of overlap (or even fly out not in Auto mode, drop a waypoint or position the Drone in the middle of the Kelp bed and plan a mission based on that). Fly the mission and come home.

For product generation, what programs y'all recommend? I was thinking Drone Deploy (Free trial) as I know they have these measurement features.

Any info/comments would be super appreciated.
 
Great use for mapping. If elevation or datum is any kind of factor you may want to drop a ground control point/flight cross or two on the beach to help later down the road. Good luck, interested in your results.
 
I would recommend you give Mission Planner a try. Open source (free) and very powerful. It can post process your photos and add GPS coordinates if that is useful.
 
Andrew,

Thanks. I'veaooed solely with MP and a Tower thus far. Definitely planned on using one or the other for pre-mission planning, and MP to geotag my photos post mission.
 

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