Page 14 - MathCounts 2018 - Final Draft for Publishing

LAND SURVEYING
Drones provide a quantum leap for surveying. They provide eyes that can reach and hover above specific
sites. Their height and cameras can be adjusted remotely. And, equipped with sensors, they can measure,
transmit and store data.
Global positioning has created greater interest in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). According
to Drone Analyst, “GIS professionals provide a wide variety of land-related services like identifying property
boundaries, subdividing land, and surveying construction sites for placement of buildings. They also produce
topographic and hydrographic maps, volumetric calculations for stockpiles, and flood insurance maps,
among other services.”
These maps are detailed, defining and textured. The drone will send the data to cloud-based storage acces-
sible to authorized professionals. Stakeholders – architects, engineers, contractors, civil authorities, custom-
ers and more – can hold individual or group discussions on results, planning and pricing.
The drone will soon dominate a lot of construction engineering projects because of its ingenuity, practicali-
ty, and affordability. Once their versatility shows on the business’ bottom line, drones will be active through-
out the industry.
Drones will accelerate processes, facilitate quality inspections, assess problems and picture alternatives.
And, they'll do this while reducing the labor burden and enabling a more efficient allocation of personnel.
Alan Perlman of UAV Coach claims, “The possibility to shorten the surveying process through the support of
UAV solutions contains the potential to enormously reduce the time and monetary investment – for every
project, for every surveying company, and in every country. Surveyors can not only increase their productivi-
ty by being able to carry out more projects in the same amount of time, but they can also work with a more
qualitative dataset, which makes it possible to conduct better, more thorough planning.”
Flightline Geographics, provider of premium image content for GIS from both manned and unmanned
platforms, and early adopter of UAS was called in to evaluate the conditions. The company conducted a
drainage study with a mere 45-minute drone flight covering 640 acres. Within two days they'd taken the
data, mapped the terrain, and provided 3D visualization. Able to do drone surveillance on Sundays while the
construction teams were not working, McKim & Creed was able to survey 180 acres half a day with drones.
UTILITY DESIGN, MAINTENANCE & CONSTRUCTION
Traditional activities performed by utility organizations include line inspections and maintenance, storm
damage assessment and more. These assessments were at one point performed by helicopters and third-
party inspection services. Not anymore. Drones can provide faster access to high-quality, real-time visual
inspection for all types of utility companies that need to inspect power lines, oil and gas pipelines, transmis-
sion towers, buildings and bridges, wind turbines and rotor blades enabling the inspector or team to access
the information from a safe position.
With the ability to cover large and remote areas drone use is accelerating in the gas and oil pipeline indus-
try. Routine maintenance such as pipeline inspection as well as the ability to dispatch drones quickly in the
event of a pipeline leak make it a valuable tool to provide swift preliminary assessments to be able to dis-
patch the necessary personnel to the site of the leak.

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