Drones, wind farms, punctures and cramp (not a good combination)
At Advantage Geomatics we have had a busy couple of months, hence the lack of updates on the blog.
The work up at the Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm has been completed, the cables were both installed and the final act of grouting the ducts happened at the start of July. It was a great opportunity for us to be involved with such a prestigious project and a sense of satisfaction to successfully wrap it up after all the issues that have beset the project.
We have also been working with a large commercial farmer in the area through our continued involvement with the European funded Agri Tech project being run from Harper Adams. We are looking at ways of using our drone service to help with their operation. Whether it be through earlier forecasting of harvest, identifying areas of lost crop or maximising yield we hope to be able to offer a viable, cost effective service at the start of the growing season next year that will give measurable improvement or cost saving to their current operation.
On top of all this we have been satisfying the needs of our local customer base with our more standard surveying services conducting topographic and measured building surveys in Shropshire and nearby counties. Although on some of these we have been able to add value by demonstrating our Drone mapping service, most notably we recently conducted a survey in Telford on one of the iconic buildings from the early days of the New Town being formed, a Japanese Pagoda style building on Stafford Park for the good people at AIP Architects, Shrewsbury. The video below shows a flythrough of the drone generated point cloud that is fully integrated into the topographic survey that we conducted on the site.
Also shown below is a comparison between the standard drawing we produce and a drawing with the imagery from the drone shown in the background. You can see the drone imagery brings a whole new level to the detail shown in a traditional plan. The potential for drone mapping being used as another tool or service we offer is still in its infancy but the amount of data that can be gathered quickly and accurately is very exciting.
Finally, all work and no play made a Jack a dull boy, so with some trepidation I headed off to Swaledale in North Yorkshire at the start of August to take part in the Ard Rock enduro mountain bike event. In the searing heat of the summer there was a great event laid on with 25 miles and 5000ft of climbing with 7 timed sections. The trails were amazing, if very rough leading to 3 punctures and the most excruciating cramp but (with hindsight) a great day. I’ll be back next year but better prepared both physically and with sturdier tyres! There’s a couple of photos below showing me when I had air in the tyre and was still having a ball.
Thanks for reading.
