Stantec Unmanned Aerial System Fleet Expands with Skycatch
On November 15 2016, Stantec and Skycatch issued a joint press release announcing our partnership to expand services offering high-accuracy data throughout Canada and the U.S.:
Stantec announces the expansion of its Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) professional services with the recent addition of multiple systems. These new survey grade multirotor systems will be located in Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Ottawa, Santa Barbara, Tucson, Reno and Salt Lake City. Designed by Skycatch, the UAS fleet will support the firm’s environmental services, geomatics, community development, mining, architecture and transportation clients, providing commercial surveying and mapping services.
“It’s an exciting time at Stantec as we expand our UAS fleet across Canada and now offer services in the United States for the first time, leading the industry with our Geomatics capabilities,” says UAS Operations Manager, Kevin Grover. “The Skycatch system provides everything we need in one package that is easy to use. This will allow us to provide clients with detailed 3D terrain and high resolution imagery much faster than before.”
With the unmanned devices, Stantec can process, view, and share rich 3D information to staff and clients in a web browser while using a secure cloud-based data solution.
Stantec has commercially operated UAS across Canada since 2013. In addition to meeting safety and regulatory standards in Canada and the US, Stantec has developed an internal UAS training program and established a UAS Governance Committee to review practice and operational procedures. Stantec will have certified UAS operators in Canada and the U.S. (under the new Part 107 rules).
“As one one of the leading innovators in engineering, Stantec immediately understood the power of precision drones and data to save money by lowering the cost of creating high-accuracy 3D models.” said said Skycatch chief executive officer Christian Sanz. “Where Stantec is now with their utilization of drone data is where we can expect the US industry to be in about 5 years.”
With the complete drone and data systems, Stantec can complete ground surveys up to five times faster than most current solutions, which require significant ground work before beginning mapping efforts. Compared with conventional topographic mapping methods, this time savings can possibly increase many times faster still. Data end-users will see benefits as well, including full-color point clouds that allow engineers to identify 3D objects more easily than with single-color LiDAR scans, and manual “cleanup” of the raw data is made unnecessary by advanced vegetation removal algorithms.
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Read the original Stantec press release here.
