Lidar attached to flying drones is increasingly being deployed for construction and mining to conduct surveys and point out terrain hazards especially in places that survey teams cannot reach.
In one example, a lidar-equipped drone from Rome, New York,-based Microdrones recently was deployed by engineering firm Sweco to survey and map the historic Falun Mine in Sweden to identify earth movement or settlements that could spell disaster in a collapse.
The open pit mine was once the world’s largest copper producer, but now has become a popular tourist attraction, so surveyors wanted to identify possible danger zones to keep people safe. Parts of the mine are dangerous for a land surveyor to reach. Two surveyors from Sweco, Johan Larsson and Johan Larsson (not related) relied on a lidar-equipped drone (the mdLiDAR3000DL aas) to collect data that could not be obtained before.
Data collected by the drone helped visualize a lidar 3D point cloud of the pit mine. A point cloud is created when a laser (in this case in lidar) produces a scan of a building or geological feature by sending out millions of laser beams which return as points when the beam hits surfaces. When the points are combined, they are known as point cloud data.
Microdrones sees lidar has become much more popular for surveying, engineering, mining and construction. The main advantage of using lidar is collecting more accurate data in much less time, which allows companies to become much more efficient with the ability to complete more projects, said Bret Burghdurf, Microdrones marketing director, via an email. In addition to reaching dangerous areas, lidar on a flying drone can penetrate ground vegetation, he said.
Microdrones recently announced a service where customers can either buy or rent drone equipment and software. A subscription model allows for monthly payments. Data post-processing can be done via software charged per project or through an unlimited plan.
Drones like the one used at the Falun Mine rely on a Riegl lidar sensor paired with a 42 megapixel Sony camera and an Applanix single board module with a GNSS receiver. Total drone take-off weight is about 33 pounds.
The Falun mine survey project has been turned into three episodes of reality-TV style series “Down to Earth.” The three episodes, “The Great Pit,” follow the launch of the drone and the work by the survey team in the mine and their work in their offices to view their data. The episodes appear on Feb. 17 and registration is required.
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