Use of drones for surveying and monitoring for the Calabria Region
APRs (Airborne Remotely Piloted Aircraft), better known as drones, are capable of carrying out aerial surveying and monitoring activities in a wide variety of sectors: from agriculture to the hydrogeological sector, and even landslide monitoring.
Monitoring wooded areas, inspecting and mapping properties, calculating volumes for quarries and landfills, are just some of the services that APRs, better known as drones, are able to perform. DR-One is an example of the use of these monitoring technologies at the service of the agri-food sector, environmental protection services, monitoring of hydrogeological instability and coastal protection. The intervention allowed the creation of ICT equipment capable of carrying out GPS, photogrammetric, thermography and precision agriculture topographic surveys thanks to professional drones, for applications serving the territory. These are sophisticated machines, high-tech products capable of carrying complex equipment into flight with which it is possible to carry out aerial survey and monitoring activities of all kinds. The monitoring work takes place through the mapping of the area to be covered in the survey which is subsequently processed by a computer which creates the automatic flight plan that the drone will have to carry out. The device takes totally automatic photographic shots in flight, ensuring perfect coverage of the area of interest. The images taken overlap each other by 70%, thus giving the software the ability to develop the algorithms necessary to create 3D models of the terrain. The acquired images can also be viewed in digital stereoscopy creating virtual reality. One of the advantages of photogrammetric surveys, which can be achieved thanks to the intervention, is that compared to terrestrial or LIDAR surveys it is possible to create 3D models of the terrain with many useful details (color information for each pixel or create highly effective textured meshes). Finally, by carrying high resolution cameras (24.7Mpx) in flight and being able to take geolocalised images (GPS on board) it is possible to have a mapping of the underlying terrain with centimeter precision. All the activities carried out by drones last a few minutes, but their peculiarity lies in the fact that they are able to bring an enormous amount of information "to the ground" with a single flight.
