Case Study on Banas River Flood Survey

Drones are consistently proving to be powerful commercial tools, simultaneously providing adopters with leaps in efficiency and safety. The surveying and mapping industry is no exception. Airpix with its capability to capture data from above successfully surveyed Banas river and integrated into workflows to perform land surveys, photogrammetry, 3D mapping, topographic surveying, and more.

Whether you’re a qualified surveyor looking to expand your toolkit, or you’re a drone enthusiast who wants to know more ways to use their drone, or you’re just generally interested in this application of drones, we’ve put together an article to help you learn everything you need to know when it comes to getting started with drone surveying.

How accurate are drone surveys?

Since adopting drones into their workflows, many surveyors ask about aerial surveying accuracy. What degree of certainty can drone surveying techniques achieve?

Drone Surveying solutions can outturn surveys with different degrees of accuracy, depending on the requirements of the project. For a few applications, like checking crop growth, or construction progress, high relative accuracy is sufficient. For other jobs that also require high absolute accuracy, there are drones equipped with real-time kinematic (RTK) and post-processing kinematic (PPK) capabilities. When paired with a few GCPs (Ground control points), survey-level accuracy can be achieved.

What kinds of deliverables can you achieve with drones?

Building on your choice of data sensors and surveying software, drone surveying can produce a variety of deliverables with use cases in many industries.

• 2D Orthomosiac Map : Stitching together hundreds or thousands of digital photos captured by your drone, and produce high-quality 2D Orthomosaic maps
• 3D Orthomosiac Map : Broad numbers of digital photos of your surveying site can be compiled into a 3D orthomosaic map and can provide actionable topographic data
• 3D Model : Generate 3D models of targets in your surveying site for quick comparison
• Thermal Map : Survey with a thermal camera and quickly identify targets with abnormal heat signatures
• Point-cloud : Equip your drone with a camera to produce a high-density point cloud.

Background

The Banas is a river that lies entirely within the state of Rajasthan in western India. Banas River comes from Aravalli Hills, Rajasthan and meets into rann of kutch. Its length is 266 km. & the total catchment area is 8674 sq.km.It is a tributary of the Chambal River, itself a Yamuna tributary, which in turn merges into the Ganga with a length of about 512 kilometers.

Check out how Airpix offered drones for aerial surveillance and delivery of medicines to disaster areas.

Why We Have Done in This Project?

We, at Airpix, surveyed land affected due to floods near Banas River. The purpose of the survey was to get an understanding of water flow and its movement for land use studies. We created an Orthomap to visually asses the area surveyed and spot its spatial features such as water bodies, Highways, and Canals.

Airpix Proprietary Drone

• Airpix uses DJI Phantom 4 pro for surveying to produce accurate data.
• The drone carries a complex package of instruments including an ultra-high resolution camera, gimbal, and a highly specialized infrared sensing system.
• The drone used for inspection has 1’’ CMOS sensor with Effective pixels up to 20M
• It also has a bigger 5.870 mAh battery (up from 5.350 mAh), given with all the extra sensors, gives it 30 minutes of flying time per charge (up from 28).
• The drone can be operated and landed even with a failure of up to two propellers or even 2 batteries.
• Able to work in conditions of high wind speed of (15 m / s to 20 m/s)
• Automation (including distance tracking and collision avoidance)
• Better protection and in-field durability (rainproof, modular, upgradable)