DroneCamp 2021, July 26-30. More info.

Mon. June 22, 2020

Things you should know BEFORE going to the field

All times are Pacific Daylight Time

Monday

9:00 - 9:10. Welcome

DroneCamp is a collaborative training program from multiple campuses within the University California and California State University systems. Now in its 4th year, DroneCamp 2020 has gone virtual in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. This session will introduce the organizations and people behind DroneCamp, and welcome you to DroneCamp!

Presenter(s): Maggi Kelly

Materials:

Recording:

Monday

9:10 - 9:50. Drone Mapping and DroneCamp Overview

A drone mapping project begins with identifying your goals and concludes with sharing your results and data. This overview session will review the overall data processing pipeline, and highlight where subsequent DroneCamp workshops fall within the workflow. It will also provide an overview of the technology and tools we’ll be using during DroneCamp.

Format: presentation

Instructor(s): Andy Lyons, Sean Hogan

Materials:

Recording:

Monday

10:00 - 10:50. Hardware: Multirotor Drones, Fixed Wings, and Sensors

Hardware selection involves balancing your objectives, budget, time, and available options. This session will review the main drone and sensor options available in today’s market, with commentary from people who have actually used them in the field. After a presentation of short talks, there’ll be an opportunity to go into breakout rooms for additional Q&A. Items to be covered include:

Drones: 3DR Solo, Phantom 3, Phantom 4 Pro, Phantom 4 RTK, Phantom 4 Multispectral, Mavic 2, Matrice 100, Matrice 200 &/ 210, Matrice 600, eBee Plus, eBee X

Sensors: Parrot Sequoia and Sequoia Plus, MicaSense RedEdge-MX, MicaSense Dual, MicaSense Altum, DJI ZenMuse X3/X5/X7, DJI FLIR XT/XT2, senseFly SODA & SODA-3D, Resonon Pika L Hypersectral

Format: hybrid

Materials:

Recording:

Monday

11:00 - 11:50. Drone Safety and Regulations Overview

Compared to just a few years ago, there’s been a lot of progress in the development of best practices for flying drones safely, as well as how to comply with regulations. This session will review the background of drone safety practices and describe the landscape of regulations from the local to the national, highlighting what you need to know to stay out of trouble. Recent and upcoming changes to FAA rules will also be described. Although this is not a Part-107 study session, resources for getting your remote pilot license will be shared.

Format: presentation

Instructor(s): Brandon Stark

Materials:

Recording:

Monday

14:00 - 14:50. Mission Planning

The number one thing you can do to get good results from your photogrammetry software is collect good images. Also the number one thing you can do to prevent crashes and mishaps is to plan your flights ahead of time. Collecting good data starts with good flight planning, or mission planning. Mission planning must incorporate a number of factors, including the capabilities of your equipment (i.e., flight time), safety margins, planning for contingencies, weather, terrain, your project goals, the type of sensor, and your flight management software. This session will review the principles of mission planning, and strategies for dealing with challenging environments. From there we’ll go into breakout rooms for demos of popular flight management apps including Pix4Dcapture, Drone Deploy, DJI Pilot, Precision Flight, and eMotion.

Format: hybrid

Presenter(s): Andy Lyons, Sean Hogan, Chippie Kislik

Additional instructions: For the hands-on portion of the workshop, we’ll go into breakout rooms for hands-on demos off several different mission planning apps. If you’d like to follow along and complete the exercise (not required), please install on your phone or tablet one of the Mission Planning Apps listed on the Computer Setup page.

Materials:

Assignment for students: Mission Plan Template

Recording:

Monday

15:00 - 15:50. Equipment Planning and Preparation

Drone mapping fieldwork involves a lot of moving parts, and every drone pilot has a story about a wasted trip due to technical or logistical glitches. In this session, learn what you need to do before heading to the field so you come back with good data. The key to not forgetting an essential step - checklists!

Format: presentation

Instructor(s): Sean Hogan

Materials:

  • Slides
  • Preparing and Checking Your Equipment (video):

Recording: