Unmanned System Data Protocol and Format

Unmanned System Data Protocol and Format
There are so many unmanned systems that could be chosen for this assignment. It depends on the strategy of data collection that this project is going for and what aircraft fits within that framework from a cost-benefit perspective. With these things in mind, the unmanned systems that provide the most cost-efficient option for ease of use and the broad range of configuration options are the DJI Matrice 210 RTK. This aircraft has been talked about before and provides a lot of configurations from agricultural geospatial data collection to construction surveying.
This aircraft used in conjunction with DJI’s sky port system the ALTUM Sensor by Mica Sense provides a large range of detection including RGB, Radiometric Thermal, and Red-edge. The camera captures all these bands in the same moment making the data easier to use and align for use and post-processing analytics ("ALTUM Data Sheet," (n.d.)). With this capture type, there is no need for an external RGB sensor because the ALTUM takes high-resolution photos from 400 ft as well as the other 5 bands all in one. The 5 imagers take one stacked picture with a resolution of 2064 x 1544 px, which combined turns out to be 3.2 MP. The file is about 24.4 MB ("ALTUM Integration Guide - R6", (n.d.)). All files are standard 16 bit TIFF file outputs,  which gives one full access to raw data so it can be processed on the platform of your choice ("Altum," (n.d.)). The camera has the external storage capacity of 128GB which is an included flash drive but is compatible with almost all external storage flash drives. The model of flash drive that comes with the sensor is a Samsung card, and there is a 256GB drive available from the same company. Using a card that is this size allows the camera the ability to capture roughly 10,000 images at the highest resolution.
The Matrice 210 RTK has a total flight time ranging from 20 to 30 minutes depending on the payload. This camera ways in just at 357 grams not including the flash drive and the average flight time that one could assume based off of DJI’s website is about 33 minutes for the weight. The flight is dependent from weight because a majority of the payloads run about the same power with the ALTUM drawing about 7watts of power with a peak of 10watts ("ALTUM Integration Guide - R6", (n.d.)). Taking one image per second during the duration of the flight would turn about to be about 46GB of data collected which would fit perfectly on the flash drive with room to spare for future flights. With the images being saved as a TIFF format the user can export all the RAW data uncompressed without losing any data.
For data treatment to complete this system, I believe that pix4dmapper or pi4dfield is the best bet to process the files and export a product for the end user. Pix4dfields has many solutions for generating orthomosaics and digital models, as well as a new processing engine that improves processing times by up to 10x faster ("Pix4Dfields", (n.d.)).
In conclusion, data processing can be complicated if there isn’t a good understanding of the collection and data transfer process. Utilizing this system with this specific sensor provides a useful and beneficial system that is easy and cost-effective.



ALTUM Data Sheet. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2018, from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/579a34a98419c24fcccb6be1/t/5ba55965e2c483cfee0454bc/1537562985982/Altum Data Sheet.pdf
ALTUM Integration Guide - R6. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2018, from file:///C:/Users/lreddawa/Downloads/Altum Integration Guide - R6.pdf
Altum. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2018, from https://www.micasense.com/altum

Pix4Dfields: The first fully-dedicated software for drone mapping in agriculture. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2018, from https://www.pix4d.com/product/pix4dfields

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