Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS): Operations

Choosing the UAS that works best for your needs is just the start of a successful survey. A successful survey must be carefully planned, safely executed, and processed correctly. In this course you will learn the theory, and practice the application of mission planning, conducting flights, and working with the data that is collected. In the first section you will learn how to plan a mission for a UAS flight, and the many considerations you must take into account including logistics, permissions, determining the area of interest, setting the flying height and flight paths, among many other factors.

In the next section, you will learn some of the basics of flying. While each platform will have its own set of procedures and protocols for it to fly, there are some basics that will apply for a large majority of aircraft. Here you will learn about flight safety, common regulations and rules, roles of the personnel on the ground, and hear about some accidents and lessons learned from others.

The last section will take a deep dive into the processing of optical images taken from UAS to derive orthomosaics and digital elevation models (DEMs) using Structure from Motion (SfM) software. SfM is now used across disciplines for industrial, commercial, and research applications. You will learn the basics of the technology, and work with a sample dataset to construct your own products.