Drones are not just for promoting real estate or aspiring influencers trying to make it big on Youtube; they are also a powerful tool for environmental monitoring. The eBee Plus by senseFly is a survey drone which debuted in 2015. The drone enables large-scale mapping of a given area, with “ built-in RTK/PPK (post-processed kinematic (PPK) and real-time kinematic (RTK)) functionality that produces high quality results. Users can manipulate the drone’s path in real-time and receive data, including surface information and weather information, via the cloud. For example, eBee can fly over a given area and create a raster data file containing in-depth elevation data, useful for land surveying.
Note that the eBee is more expensive than drones targeted at average consumers; some scientists have proposed alternative, lower-cost methods for using consumer grade drones for environmental monitoring.
senseFly. (2020). “eBee Plus Survey Drone.” https://www.sensefly.com/drone/ebee-plus-survey-drone/
Tripicchio, Paolo, Massimo Satler, Giacomo Dabisias, Emanuele Ruffaldi, and Carlo Alberto Avizzano. “Towards smart farming and sustainable agriculture with drones.” In 2015 International Conference on Intelligent Environments, pp. 140-143. IEEE, 2015.
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Data, Ecological Modelling, Ecological Monitoring, Industry/Natural Commodities, Internet of Things, Monitoring, Regulation, Visual Technologies
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