- “What equipment is better to use for survey in the forest areas?”
- “What is its efficiency?”
- “How many hectares of survey can be done per day?”
To answer these questions, we would like to share with you the results of an drone LiDAR survey performed by the TOPODRONE team in conjunction with the BDS TOPOGRAFIE company, Romania.
Below we show point cloud obtained by the TOPODRONE LIDAR 100 LITE integrated with DJI X4S camera and installed on board DJI MATRICE 210 RTK drone.
Fig. 1. TOPODRONE LIDAR 100 LITE installed on board of DJI M210.
To ensure high-precision post-processing of GNSS data, EMLID REACH RS2 was used as a base station, which collect observations in a static mode at a point with known coordinates. To evaluate the accuracy of the generated point cloud, several well recognized on the ground control points were measured.
Fig. 2. Check points collecting.
Professional UGCS software was used to plan the aerial laser scanning mission and control the drone.
Fig. 3. UGCS software at work.
Upon completion of the flight, which lasted less than 20 minutes, the data was downloaded to a field laptop and after simple processing steps we created detailed point cloud and orthophoto (the stages of data processing were described in detail in one of our previous articles TOPODRONE LIDAR 100 LITE - LIDAR POINT CLOUD DATAPROCESSING WORKFLOW)
It takes us less than few hours after flight to generate 3D point cloud, orthomosaic, automatically extract terrain and generate contour lines for an area of about 40 hectares of mountain forest area (Fig. 4-10).
The accuracy of point cloud and terrain model was evaluated by previously measured control points. We were really excited by 2-4 cm x,y,z precision of the point cloud (Fig. 11-12).
Thus, answering the question about the performance of TOPODRONE LIDAR 100 LITE installed on a DJI M200 / 210 drone, we confidently declare that this set of equipment will allow to cover 300 - 600 hectares of a mountain forest area per day and after few hours of data processing you will get an automatically classified precise terrain level, colorized point cloud, orthophoto as well as sort of maps layers.
TOPODRONE LIDAR 100 LITE will help you to cut number of field work hours substantially and allows to generate precise DTM and contour lines in hard to reach areas where before only Total Station could be used for surveying with efficiency of 1-2 hectares per day.
Fig. 4. Real color point cloud.
Fig. 5. Point cloud.
Fig. 6. Terrain profile.
Fig. 7. Real color point cloud.
Fig. 8. Automatically classified terrain level.
Fig. 9. Point cloud.
Fig. 10. Automatically generated contour lines.
Fig. 11. Check point position.
Fig. 12. Check point position.
1. Orthophotomosaic.
2. Point cloud.
3. Terrain level.
4. Classified point cloud.