31 unmanned systems
inside
April/May 2017
ENGINEERING. PRACTICE. POLICY.
information modeling (BIM) project. Again
they used the Leica P20 for interior scanning
and the Fox 6 for exterior photogrammetry.
The entire property was then modeled using
Revit architecture software.
Houdry said other obvious applications in-
volve working in places where people just can't
go, such as inspecting dam faces or the under-
sides of bridges.
Putting the benefits of this kind of technolo-
gy into monetary terms is not straightforward,
Houdry said, but in general time saved comes
out to at least 50% compared to more conven-
tional tacheometry. And, he said, "Concerning
return on investment (ROI), we earn between
20% and 30% more in terms of margin com-
pared to old methods."
Houdry said he is eager to try more of
Heliceo's products and is very interested in
particular in seeing what he could do with a
LiDAR-equipped Fox6.
Bringing it Home
Back in San Francisco, Jean-François Baudet
boasted, "Our drone product range is wide
with both multirotors and VTOL planes, and
we have developed a bathymetric boat drone
and a terrestrial mapping tool. All our products
work with our DroneBox concept, unique in the
world, equipped with RTK GNSS system."
In America, as in Europe, he said, Heliceo is
looking forward to bigger and better opportu-
nities for development. "It will require signifi-
cant investment and the company is ready to
put several million dollars into the building of
assembly plants on American soil, and we will
recruit technicians and engineers, salespeople,
GIS specialists and trainers."
"THESE AREN'T
JUST AUDIOVISUAL
DRONES
that have been
modified or adapted
to photogrammetry.
The flight qualities are
right and the installed
equipment gives us the
right level of resolution."
Benoit Houdry, manager,
Selarl Houdry
www.sbg-systems.com
0.1° Roll & Pitch
0.2° Heading
2 cm RTK
» Immune to magnetic disturbances
» L1/L2 GNSS receiver
Ellipse-D Dual GNSS/INS
Inertial Navigation System
» Accurate heading even under low dynamics
» Post-processing