Welcome, Commercial Drone Pilots!
Join our growing community today!
Sign up

Parrot Disco for crop survey & forestry, any actual user experiences?

Lady Rover

New Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2019
Messages
3
Reaction score
1
Age
56
Hi,

I have a client who has 200ha (Hectar) of (Conifer-) forest and approached me for a survey. My location is in Germany.
The purpose is on one side to check storm damages and remeasure newly planted areas, but as well checking on sick trees.
Currently I have only a Mavic Air available, which is clearly not up to the job. The flight time is to short and even with 3 batteries it would be cumbersome at least.

As this is an important client to me, I am considering to get a fixed wing drone even if its just for this job (As long as I make enough from it to pay for the drone & camera).
If the job is completed sucessfully, there may be other jobs. But this is very uncertain as of yet.
Due to this I need a low budget system capable to do the job. Take off weight needs to be below 2kg.

Over here there are a number of Parrot Disco airframes available for low cost and I consider to buy one of those and then going down the path outlined here:
Cheap Fixed Wing Mapping
To my knowledge the airframe of the consumer Disco is the same as the one on the agricultural system.
My main concern with using the Disco is how the rolling & pitching affect images taken. I guess that pictures from a GoPro 7 would be pretty stable&sharp, but my main concern is that the rolling could result in uneven picture coverage & distortions.
I am planning to use Pix4D or Opendronemap for post processing and would fly a double grid mission on a consistent height above ground.

Now my questions to this community are:

1)
Is anyone actually sucessfully using the Disco for this kind of stuff and/or field surveys.
What are your experiences regarding the rolling issue?
On the web I find primarely info from folks selling the equipment. I need user experiences as well.

2)
Do I absolutely need a Sequoia sensor for the check on bark beetles?
Is the Sequoia creating good enough results for checking on sick trees and/or bark beetle infestation?
Alternatively could infestations be spotted from the true color images by looking on the level of green the canopy shows?
My client has a tree expert who could take a close look at the imagery taken.

3)
No matter where you are located, what kind of prices would you charge for that kind of survey (ex tax)?

4)
As this is a fixed wing aircraft, I plan to fly on a fairly calm day, still, does the fact that the wind could come on one leg from the front and on the return leg from the back pose a problem?

Thanks for any additional input,

Fran
 
Hello Fran and welcome to our forum.

I really can't give you any input on your questions but I wish you the best of luck in your searches and work.

Allen
 
We can add some information for you to consider. We fly golf courses with multispectral cameras for turf stress analysis which would be much like what you are looking to accomplish - just on different types of vegetation. We have also used Pix4D as a stitching and processing tool. One issue we encountered when we were not getting true nadir shots (camera was slightly angled or pitched for some shots) is that our stitching was not true and square. We only noticed this because we have to align our stitched images with existing shape files in our software. While the images did stitch together, the software had to stretch and warp some of the images that were not pointing straight down and this gave us some trouble with our calculations of surface area on specific parts of the golf courses. For non-repeatable flights over agriculture this is not as important but I offer the information as an answer to one of your questions above about the camera pointing straight down. If its hard mounted on a fixed wing, you may experience a similar issue.

I'll see if we can provide any further answers for you relating to the multispectral analysis of the trees and specifically the identification of an insect.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BigAl07
Hey Florida Drone Supply,

thanks for the detailled and very helpful reply. What kind of multispectral camera did you use?
Did you use a fixed wing drone?

I was just on this page and judging by this I'd get the Survey 3 with OCN filter.
How to Choose a Survey3 Camera Filter Model

Not sure what the difference between:
Survey3N Camera -
Orange+Cyan+NIR (OCN, NDVI)
&
Survey3W Camera -
Orange+Cyan+NIR (OCN, NDVI)
is though.


I really appreciate it if you have more info relating to the multispectral analysis of the trees and specifically the identification of an insect.
How much do you tend to charge for the kind of survey you describe for golf courses?

Thanks again,

Fran
 
Hello Fran. We have used a number of them over the past few years. If using an RGB converted sensor we have mostly done BGNIR - but you will get the best results from true multispectral and calibrated sensors.

We mostly fly multi rotor - but still have some of our older fixed wing and tettra cam gear.

If you want to talk specifics, consider giving us a ring...(855) 837-6637 or easier to remember (855) 8-DRONES

Thanks!
 
Nobody ever wants to talk about pricing, but those numbers are really helpful to people looking for opportunities. If we know how much a typical golf course costs to do an ag review, then we can make reasonable decisions to determine if an investment in drones would be worth it. Thanks.
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
4,277
Messages
37,605
Members
5,969
Latest member
KC5JIM