surveying and mapping

Autonomous drone mapping startup Emesent has announced its latest survey-grade LiDAR payload: Hovermap ST. The lightweight, IP65-rated solution is being launched with Emesent’s new Automated Ground Control feature that, the company stresses, enables autonomous data capture in harsher environments than ever and for a wider range of use cases.

Ordnance Survey (OS), the national mapping agency for Great Britain, has decided to incorporate Altitude Angel’s aeronautical data into its in-house survey planning software. The information will help the geospatial experts at OS determine whether it’s better to carry out a survey using a drone, or if it’s more appropriate for one of the agency’s 230 surveyors to get their boots on the ground.

Convergence in the high-end mapping and 3D-modeling drone services segment is afoot with the acquisition of LiDAR tech specialist GeoCue by the mdGroup, owner of Germany-based Microdrones.

XAG, one of the top three commercial drone manufacturers of 2021, has launched five new products that will become available globally in 2022. And as was expected, XAG’s new autonomous solutions, which include both drones and ground robots, pack in more efficiency, precision, and safety than the company’s previous models.

Custodians of the Seaford Head coastal cliffs in southeast England know loss of their archeologically important site to erosion and rising sea levels is a question of when, not if, and as a result are using drones and other digital technology to thoroughly map and model the area before it’s gone.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said it will begin deploying a gamma ray-reading drone to monitor former uranium mining and processing sites in Central Asia. The airborne surveys will permit accurate analysis of the radioactive zones that human researchers have had to wade through until now.

A drone survey funded by McDonald’s has revealed the sordid scale of Britain’s trash problem. When rubbish-mapping drones scanned the coastal resort towns of Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole (BCP Council) in the month of May, it was discovered that littering had increased by 454% compared to the volumes found during the March lockdown.

Swiss Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) drone maker Wingtra and data visualization and analysis specialist Propeller Aero are teaming up to offer a precision 3D mapping and surveying platform for industrial clients.