DOTs Using Drones to Build Better Roads
DOTs Using Drones to Build Better Roads Public Works November 28, 2016
While Automated Machine Guidance (AMG) is being used increasingly by managers to improve precision and accuracy, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is looking to add unmanned aircraft (drones) to help survey areas for construction efforts. In this article for Inside Unmanned Systems Charles Choi reports on ODOT's use of the Aibotix Aibot X6 Hexacopter to produce digital terrain models via structure-from-motion technologies that estimate 3-D structures from multiple, overlapping 2-D images. ODOT Survey Chief Ron Singh comments on the anomalies that occur from the use of structure-from-motion technologies, using the capturing of an image of a vertical wall from a camera pointing straight down as an example: "...However, if we include some oblique images—if, for part of the flight mission, we turn the camera so it flies along that wall to produce more images of it—then we create a surface model of that wall that is much more correct, that is crisp and sharp.”
While Automated Machine Guidance (AMG) is being used increasingly by managers to improve precision and accuracy, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is looking to add unmanned aircraft (drones) to help survey areas for construction efforts. In this article for Inside Unmanned Systems Charles Choi reports on ODOT's use of the Aibotix Aibot X6 Hexacopter to produce digital terrain models via structure-from-motion technologies that estimate 3-D structures from multiple, overlapping 2-D images. ODOT Survey Chief Ron Singh comments on the anomalies that occur from the use of structure-from-motion technologies, using the capturing of an image of a vertical wall from a camera pointing straight down as an example: "...However, if we include some oblique images—if, for part of the flight mission, we turn the camera so it flies along that wall to produce more images of it—then we create a surface model of that wall that is much more correct, that is crisp and sharp.”
