Aerial Drone Survey- Unmanned Autonomous Systems
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NV5 Acquires L3Harris Geospatial Software
We empower our clients to make the world a smarter, safer, and better place for us to live through big data services, geomatics, business solutions, cloud services, infrastructure security, analytics, and professional services.
Comprehensive Enterprise Geospatial Services
With the recent acquisition of Geodynamics LLC, NV5 Geospatial has built a comprehensive suite of geospatial solutions for geospatial surveys of deep water and near-shore environments to deliver detailed insights for coastal management, flood monitoring, ecosystem protection, research and more.
Geodynamics joins NV5 Geospatial
Discover new features in our latest release.
Sr Product Manager Zach Powers will explain how INSITE Core accesses, organizes and visualizes your spatial data.
INSITE Core-
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Lidar scans make it easy to see the difference between a fire-resistant forest and one where fire has been suppressed.
-Philip Kiefer, Popular Science
Laser scans show how fires have changed Yosemite’s forests
UAS / Drones
NV5 Geospatial’s passion and commitment to innovative unmanned aerial systems (UAS) makes us an industry leader in data acquisition, processing, and downstream analytics. We are fully committed to achieving the best results in geospatial analysis using aerial drone survey technology.
As the largest, most innovative, and most capable geospatial solutions firm in North America, we use our scale to the advantage of our clients. Our geospatial solutions provide efficiencies and analytics that aren’t typically seen in our space. Our aerial mapping services and UAS technology push the boundaries of data and analytics. We deliver actionable intelligence and transform the way our clients utilize and value geospatial data.
Why UAS?
UAS provides significant advantages for many aerial drone survey projects. They are easy to move from site-to-site. We operate them with little to no interruption of traffic or construction. They are safe, efficient, and cost effective. And finally, they can provide the ultimate level of detail via pinpoint accuracy and ultra-high resolution.
We use the latest in both multi-rotor as well as fixed wing drones to collect lidar, RGB orthoimagery, thermal imaging, and multispectral data.
We're Drone Survey Certified
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules for small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS), or “drone,” operations are spelled out in Part 107 of the Federal Register. This includes the general operating requirements and the certification of pilots.
We have 12 professionals with certification as a remote pilot with a small UAS rating. They have diverse skills and detailed knowledge of our aerial platforms and the sensors they carry. Currently we work within line-of-sight restrictions, which generally limits us to a radius of about one mile. We expect modification of this restriction and a move to beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) flying at some point over the next few years.
Other restrictions include a maximum flying height of 400 feet above ground, a maximum gross takeoff weight (MGTW) of 55 pounds, and a maximum speed of 100 mph (87 knots).
Platforms
Sensors
Lidar – Using a laser and scanning mirror, lidar accurately models the ground and built environment above it. Our lidar sensors from RIEGL are the most accurate and capable sensors available for sUAS flights. They can achieve vertical accuracies to 0.05 feet at point densities ranging from 75 to 200 points per square meter (ppsm). Lidar has application in many engineering, planning, construction, and utility projects. Lidar sensors represent our heaviest payloads at 12 pounds or more.
Multispectral Imagery – multispectral imagery captures three visible bands (red, green, and blue) and one invisible near infrared to provide us with high-resolution imagery that has many uses. The benefits of true color (RGB) imagery are obvious. The near infrared band is useful in many environmental applications to monitor vegetation health or allow us to classify pervious from impervious land cover. Extreme image resolutions are possible from our multi-rotor platforms that lead to many innovative project uses, like building inspection, vegetation health, land use change, water and environmental quality, soils, geology, and other scientific challenges.
Thermal Imagery – our FLIR thermal infrared camera provides data representing variance in temperature. It has many uses including monitoring energy efficiency for buildings, examining the performance of assets in substations or along electric transmission lines (e.g. overheated transformers or failing insulators), or find illegal sewage discharges along rivers. NV5 Geospatial has certified thermographers that can interpret the imagery for meaningful results.
We use sophisticated inertial navigation systems (INS) to accurately determine the 3D position and 3D orientation of our sensors at all times during flight. This allows us to perform calibration of all captured data, allowing us to accurately reference it to the ground on your project datum. It is then easy to capture positions, heights, separations, and other measurements from the data acquired from the aerial drone survey.