Drone-Based Teaching + Research

With technology advancing faster each day, it's important for us to provide students with the most cutting-edge opportunities to build their skills set. At GGS, we give students the tools and resources to be at the forefront of tomorrow's breakthroughs. One way we are doing this is through our drone-based remote sensing course.

Our popular new "Drone Remote Sensing" course focuses on the fundamentals of collecting and processing drone-based sensor data for various scientific and commercial applications. We explore the principles involved in drone-based photogrammetry, 3D reconstruction, multi-spectral and LiDAR sensing, whilst providing hands-on experience with drone mission planning, data acquisition and data processing. We use multiple DJI drones (including Matrice 200, InSpire, Mavic 2 Dual) and interchangeable sensors including, LiDAR (Quanergy M8 Ultra), multi-spectral (MicaSence RedEdge-MX), thermal (FLIR Vue Pro R) and various DJI RGB cameras for photogrammetry.

GGS researchers are using state-of-the-art sensors to advance our understanding of the physical and biological elements of physical and human systems, including carbon and water distributions, agricultural productivity, forests management, vegetation and ecosystem dynamics, snow and freeze/thaw transitions, civil engineering, building mapping, and power grid hardening. Drone-based remote sensing provides a level of detail complementary to satellites and ground studies, at low material and operational cots, flexible control of spatial and temporal resolution, high-intensity data collection, and the absence of risk to crews.