Our Projects

Project Summary

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, have become a popular method for collecting survey-related data due to their small size, ease of use, and ability to cover large areas in significantly less time than traditional survey methods. Cornerstone’s team of land surveyors and drone operators were selected to perform an aerial survey of an active gravel yard to produce a contoured site plan, which would have otherwise presented safety and accuracy challenges. To complete this work, Cornerstone’s team established ground control points at safely accessible and easily identifiable locations throughout the gravel yard. The team developed a pre-flight plan that considered weather, airspace restrictions, landscape restrictions, a strategic flight pattern, and anticipated battery consumption based on the proposed flight path and duration. Following the successful mission, our analyst performed post processing of the data using photogrammetry software designed and optimized specifically for images captured during drone flight missions. Once the data was processed, several outputs were synthesized including a point cloud, 3D texture mesh, a digital surface model (DSM), digital terrain model (DTM), and orthomosaic. Our final deliverable to the client was a topographic map with contours at 1-foot intervals.

Challenges and Solutions

The site surveyed by our UAV team contained a powerline in close proximity to the gravel yard. The effects of electromagnetic distortion were known to our experienced team and therefore the flight mission was strategically designed to avoid such effects.

There are numerous software packages available to the industry with vastly different purposes and advantages. Cornerstone possesses an in-depth understanding of our client’s needs and the needs of the energy infrastructure industry. As such, our clients are confident in our ability to carefully vet the wide range of available technology to select products that best fit the application.