Carrying out a complete drone survey using standardized methods and tools comes with a variety of considerations. These include flight preparation and safety, and organizing the data once you return to the office.
Using the steps below will allow you to collect imagery of your survey area(s), record key flight information, and safely store your data to keep it organized and ready for processing.
Stage outcomes
At the end of this stage you should have:
Flown a drone mission and collected images
Image files downloaded from the drone
Image files safely and securely stored
Flight logs filled out
Step 1- Pre-flight preparation
Before heading into the field, it can be helpful to review a few key considerations. Doing so will help to ensure your drone operations are safe, compliant and efficient.
Some key considerations include:
Understand the training and permit requirements for safe and legal drone operations.
The latest information on the regulations for flying drones in Canada can be found on the Transport Canada website.
The ‘Best practices for planning and conducting drone flights for mapping coastal habitats’ and ‘In the field: drone setup and safety’ sections in the Coastal Habitat Mapping Using Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (RPAS) guide can offer insights in what the requirements are for legally and safely flying a drone in Canada. This informative video on Drone and Pilot Regulations can provide further context.
Check your equipment and prepare your drone missions.
The NRCAN Drone site selection tool designate safe drone operation areas
Create a plan for how you will safely access the site
Test equipment to ensure it’s working correctly
Drone flights guidelines specific to mission planning for mapping kelp forests
Enter your flight mission in your drone prior to departure; this Preparing to Map with a Drone video has helpful instructions
Check weather and tides before traveling to your site.
Ensure everyone participating in the drone surveys is aware of safe travel, field and operating procedures.
Have Fun and Be Safe - a successful drone survey comes down to everyone on the team being on the same page with regards to safety and expectations. To achieve this, it can help to:
Make a field plan and assign responsibilities based on your organization's safe working protocols and working procedures.
Ensure you have a trained visual observer to support the drone pilot. Review the Hakai Drone Visual Observer Training document with the person filling that role during the survey.
Step 2 - Fly your drone
Execute your flight plan, which means:
Safely and effectively collect data with a drone.
The “In the field: drone setup and safety” section in the Coastal Habitat Mapping Using Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (RPAS) guide includes insights into how to effectively and safely set up your drone once you are in the field. Some considerations it offers are:
A list of important requirements for safe and effective field operations.
What safe flying conditions are.
Recommendations for flying your drone mission.
Ensure good communication with the pilot and visual observer.
The MaPP Drone Training videos offer step-by-step instructions on how to operate your drone. Good communication between the pilot, visual observer and crew can contribute to a smooth survey, and ensures that everyone is aware of what is happening before, during and after the drone survey. To execute your monitoring effectively, you will need to have a visual observer who has been trained and knows what to look out for.
Document flight metadata, tidal conditions and more.
It is recommended to take good field notes in a Flight Log, which could include:
Date, name of site, weather and tide height during the surveys, name of pilot, name of field crew
Flight details: start and end of each flight, elevation of the survey, speed of drone during survey, side- and front-lap (%) of the survey.
Additional notes to record: Was any ground control collected? Did all of the equipment behave as expected? Were there any issues that were experienced that you can learn from?
Once you have completed your drone flight, and you are back in the office you can follow these steps. Watch the MaPP Drone Training videos on Flight Logs and Drone Maintenance.
Download the data from the drone.
Read the “Data storage” section in the Coastal Habitat Mapping Using Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (RPAS). In this section you will learn how to:
In the field: Create a back up copy of your data to ensure you don’t lose any data.
Once back at the office: Organize your data including the storage of raw, processed and final data products.
Review, complete and store your Flight Log.
Write down the details from your drone survey including date, time, location and tide height.
Store and care for your equipment.
Clean and dry all equipment before storing them for any period of time.
Charge batteries and controller.
Replace SD cards for future surveys.
Resources
The following resources are associated with the Collection stage.
Next stage
Once you have completed collecting your data, you will be ready to move on to the data processing stage.
