Drone Mapping of the Quadra Island Field Station

Geospatial data capture with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

Over the past few months the Hakai Institute has been testing new solutions for data acquisition. We face a number of challenges to try and collect the best spatial information in an efficient manner.

Satellite imagery and helicopter surveys have been useful in the past, but the addition of the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) has opened many doors to improve the quality of our research.

By having our own solutions we are able to combat the headaches associated with poor weather, tide windows, and expensive externally-sourced imagery. The latest snapshot the Geospatial Technology Team took was of the Quadra Island Field Station. Within a single 15-minute flight we captured imagery for a 750 x 1300 meter swath that includes a 3D mesh of the landscape at a spatial resolution of 10 cm.