Cape Nature required a fixed wing UAV for covering large areas of Fynbos equipped with a high resolution downward facing camera to capture a detailed picture from above, they would then use this picture to ascertain what invasive plants were in the area as well as to count numbers of animals within that area.
We built a Talon UAV with APM 2.6 on board with full GPS and mission planner ground station, powered by 2 8000mah 6s batteries giving over an hour’s flight time. This proved to be more than adequate to map the kind of areas Cape Nature required.
Mission Planners ground station made it simple for the user to control the UAV through a precise grid pattern over the required area and would action the camera either on time delay or on precise GPS positioning.
The Talon could cover a large area and the photos taken could be ran through stitching software giving a large photo of the fynbos but allow you to zoom in to a 5cm block to spot species of animal and alien plant types.