Fall NEARC 2018

AUTHORS: John Diaz, Robert Nalewajk – Greenman-Pedersen, Inc.

ABSTRACT: GPI is actively utilizing in-house UAS services for a variety of project related tasks. These can vary from obtaining simple graphics for marketing/presentation purposes to complex, surveys and infrastructure assessments. Keeping track of the flights, in terms of planning, scheduling, assigning pilots and notifying Project Managers of the completion of the flight as well as data processing was becoming more difficult as more and more applications for UAS services grew. One of the biggest issues was communicating with the UAS pilots to assign projects and for them to notify staff of the status (planning, complete, etc.).

Utilizing a variety of ESRI GIS products; including Workforce, Collector, Web Apps, AGOL and Desktop, GPI was able to provide a more direct way for Project Managers to coordinate and schedule UAS flights. Through building a Web App, Managers could submit a flight request and check on the status of the flight. Through integrating the Flight Request with Workforce, the flight could be assigned to the UAS Pilot through the mobile application. Integrating the Collector application with Workforce allowed the UAV Pilot to view all details of the project as well as giving them the opportunity to edit relevant data from the field.

Once the flight was completed, a dashboard was developed to provide a quick update of the flight request status.

The discussion will also include GPI's use of Collector and Survey 123 as tools to more efficiently and effectively collect field data for a variety of applications.