Field Outting

Introduction

This was the first attempt at a field outing to fly a Mavic 2 pro and M600 Pro to collect data at Purdue wildlife area. The weather and other factors made it challenging to collect the data required. 

Operations

Mission

    I personally could not tell you what the goal of this mission was other than 2 flights, one with an M600 pro with a RGB and red edge sensor, and another flight with a mavic 2 pro.  

Location & Weather conditions

The location was Purdue wildlife area, it is a controlled prairie near some tall forest. This provided some interesting conditions and challenges for collecting the data with the present weather conditions. 
The weather was clear sky and winds from 200 deg at 8 knots, gusting to 21 knots. 
For the prairie the winds were blowing it during the entire flights, therefore I would expect to see lots of motion blur in the data. Also, the winds were above the M600 Pros operating conditions specified by the manufacture, so I am unsure how close it was to the prescribed flight tracks.

Operations

The M600 Pro was flown on a predefined flight path at 20 Mph and 500 Feet AGL. The flight path and sensor settings were designed for an 80% front overlap and 85% side overlap. The RGB camera had a shutter speed of 1/4000 and an aperture of 3.5, the ISO was set to auto to correct for any light changes during the operation. 6 Propeller GCPs were set out around the mission area to aid in the calibration of the data collected. 











Conclusion

In my opinion, there was no point in bringing the 309 class out for this operation other than to claim "time in the field" as were have not seen the data collected, processed the data collected or even seen the prescribed flight plans. It would have been a much better lab if the students were prepped and briefed on what was going on for the missions. Those things to prep and brief would be a checklist for the aircraft, flight plans, sensor settings, and why the data is being collected, as well as factors that hinder the data collection. 

Comments

  1. JSayreApril 30, 2021 at 8:25 PM

    The conclusion really ties the entire post together, I strive to attain this level of clarity.

    ReplyDelete

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