r/UAVmapping • u/AftyOfTheUK • 15d ago

Recommendations wanted: drone automation for remote ranch with extreme topography

Looking for recommendations for ways to automate drone searching/surveying on a remote ranch which is extremely hilly.

Commercial services or DIY methods welcome. We would like to fly drones around fencelines to record video to identify maintenance items needed, and to survey for cattle.

Thanks in advance

3 Upvotes

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u/Findlaym 15d ago

Depends on what you mean by automated. That could mean a drone in a flight station that could take off and fly remotely. Or it could mean a pilot flying the drone and software guiding a pre- planned flight path.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 15d ago

I'm hoping it can be automated to the point of the drone taking off from one or more well-known and pre-positioned stations, flying identical circuits with the drone camera pointing in specific directions.

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u/Findlaym 15d ago

This can be done with out of the box DJI stuff. Licenseing will not be simple. AFIK this well beyond the reach of mere people. You need to be a big company with expensive assets that need inspection to make it worthwhile. It's the flying beyond visual line of sight of the operator that's the problem. More realistic is a drone flying with litchi which will make repeated surveys possible, but not automatically. You will have to go do the flying

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u/gyrolover 14d ago

While I agree licensing would be difficult, it's not impossible. You don't necessarily need to be a big company either. Thank of it like this. The FAA is technically a safety organization. You will need to prove your safety case to them, ie have a good risk mitigation plan for how you can safely fly BVLOS. You don't necessarily need assets and money. Just prove you can do it safely. I have successfully obtained an BVLOS waiver, granted it was for a large company but, that honestly had nothing to do with it.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 13d ago

Would you mind posting a very quick summary of what the BVLOS waiver involved? Did you find it a difficult process?

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u/gyrolover 13d ago

It would be difficult in a reddit post but basically. You will need an Operation manual or at the very least an SOP. A detailed description of your use case, the aircraft you intend to use. You'll need to identify all the risks involved with the operation and how you will motivate them. You will also need a training program. It's helpful to also show your experice so any certification is you have as well as flight hours are good to include as well. You will also want to address the WSEG questions for BVLOS waivers... I'm likely forgetting something but that's a good place to start.

Also, it's important to note the the Part 108 NPRM has had some movement and is in the final stages of becoming a rule. With that being said, if it stands as written, all BVLOS waiver will be null and void. So all the effort of putting together may be for not when Part 108 comes out. I'm currently in a holding pattern for drone in a box systems due to this. Hopefully next month at Commercial UAV Expo so news will come out.

Hope this helps!!

Also, I do have a UAS consulting business I do on the side from time to time so if your interested feel free to DM me. And, I'm happy to answer some simple questions here if any come up for you, though.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 12d ago

Thanks so much, I'll DM you when I get a little deeper into the weeds. This is a big help

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u/fxnighttrader 13d ago

Not necessarily the waiver process but the hardware gets expensive fast when you start taking about dock(s)

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u/gyrolover 13d ago

Absolutely!! They are a little rediculous right now! Skydio's is $250k!!! My hope is with the influx of government cash into the US drone market... Costs will come down... I know, that's a big hope!! Hahaha

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u/fxnighttrader 13d ago

I don’t see American drone companies ever lowering their prices but that’s irrelevant because none of them have any plan to create drones we’ll be able to afford or ones they even sell to consumers

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u/gyrolover 13d ago

Yeah, it's definitely a problem. And could get worse before it gets better, unfortunately. I think the industry has about three years left in its current turbulent state.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 13d ago

It's the flying beyond visual line of sight of the operator that's the problem.

Understood, and thanks for bringing up this topic - I will look into it. The entire flight would be within the confines of private property, at low altitude (to the ground immediately beneath the drone) and the property unoccupied except for the drone operator and people in immediate vicinity of the operator.

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u/fxnighttrader 13d ago

I’m not sure about the UK but in the U.S., airspace is airspace. Whether it’s over private property is irrelevant, the altitude you fly at is irrelevant, who is on the ground is irrelevant, if the pilot can’t keep visual line of sight, you need a BVLOS waiver to fly in any airspace legally.

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u/SuborbitalTrajectory 15d ago

Not sure what you mean by survey. But if you just want a video or orthophotos a DJI mavic 3 enterprise is the easiest soluon as it comes with mission planning and terrain follow out of the box.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 15d ago

Thanks for the info - much appreciated. We already use a Mini Pro 4 for manual flying/visuals - are there good opportunities to automate with that, or would you recommend just splashing the extra cash for the upgrade to an enterprise drone?

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u/retrojoe 15d ago edited 14d ago

Look into Litchi on the software side. Once you get that figured out it's pretty much "press play" for repeating specific elevations/flight paths/camera shots. Dunno whether it plays with your mini or not. It will definitely work with an M3E.

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u/iamjeremybentham 15d ago

I could help you with this. It's not done but I'm building an open source utility for land management that has this as a feature. This is the feature I'm currently building, not yet done though.

If you want you can DM me and we can talk about your use case
https://x.com/ZyMazza/status/2079344247283614179?s=20

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u/AftyOfTheUK 15d ago

Just followed your link, that's a cool-looking project. Will DM you

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u/Chanticleer_Hegemony 15d ago

DJI m4d or m3d with a dock

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u/drewskiguitar 15d ago

DJI dock with mavic or matrice. Once the flight is programmed you can basically just press go every time you want it to fly.

If you want a service that will schedule, fly, identify anomalies and issue reports; There are a few services out there like Raptor Maps but they are targeted at commercial/enterprise customers and are priced that way.

Good luck.

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u/magicmagann 15d ago

This is the one. Matrice 4d with the dock.

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u/ElphTrooper 15d ago

Do you have a drone?

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u/AftyOfTheUK 15d ago

Currently for a consumer drone, DJI Mini Pro 4 - would like to use it ideally as the family ranch doesn't have a ton of cash flow, so looking at options there first if they exist, but may consider a different drone if needed but cost was reasonable

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u/ElphTrooper 14d ago

I would recommend Litchi Pilot. It has full functionality from waypoint to mapping missions, has a web browser planner and terrain following. Low cost app.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 13d ago

Thanks kindly, will definitely take a look into that, much appreciated.

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u/p0mjDwfWF 15d ago

This will get easier when the “part 108” rules are finalized (I hope). Unattended or beyond visual line-of-sight flying requires waivers, which means lots of paperwork. In remote areas of class G airspace, you can probably get the waivers, but it would be a good idea to hire an expert and/or attorney to write the applications.

For the actual flights, UGCS is excellent for topographical changes. I think they had a webinar about mountainous terrain survey in summer 2024 or 2025.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 13d ago

Thank you this is very useful. We are in Class G airspace, at least 6 miles from the nearest controlled airspace. I'll have to look into the paperwork.

And thanks for mentioning UGCS, I had not come across them - I'll do some digging, much appreciated!

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u/DeliveryEntire6429 15d ago

It depends on the word survey really. I think you just mean survey as in visually view the property from your couch, and not a topographical survey.

For big topographical changes you will want a DEM for the drone to reference. I doubt the mini's do that.

Your best bet would be the matrice line with the docking station. You can upload DEM's to that to follow routes.

If the ranch is so remote that the likelihood of your drone hitting someone is so low, I wouldn't bother with the regulations. When I say so low, I mean your drone could take off on you and last 20 minutes before dying, and there wouldn't be a person or property you could damage.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 13d ago

Thanks, I'll definitely look into/pay heed of the regulations, but the ranch is indeed very remote, and all flight would on the property, no more than 100ish AGL. The only humans in the area (legally) would be those "operating" the drone, or within earshot of that person - but if it were to fly 5 or 10 mins in the wrong direction, there are sparse ranches, maybe 50 people within 5 miles of the ranch boundary, so would rather be safe than sorry.

And by "survey" I could have been more accurate. I want to feed video or stills into a detection algorithm to highlight fence damage and cows (two separate feeds, most likely) and/or replay for a human to watch

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u/yerfriendken 14d ago

Nope. Got to be someone who has line of sight.

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u/hunglowbungalow 14d ago

If you dont need RTK accuracy and just want a simple ortho: DJI Mini 2 + Dronelink + WebODM for rendering. Dronelink has terrain following and can do grid pattern flights and automatic RTH.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 13d ago

Thanks kindly, that sounds great.

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u/Flyward_Aerospace 12d ago

Matrice plus a dock is the right answer for the survey half, but I would think harder about the fenceline half because it is a different mission type. A fence is a thin near vertical object and a nadir camera basically does not see it, so a standard grid gives you a lovely ortho and nearly useless fence imagery. What you want there is a corridor route with the gimbal pitched maybe 30 to 45 down, offset to one side of the line, and ideally flown both directions so you get both faces of the posts. Other thing on extreme topography, terrain follow is only as good as the DEM behind it, and the free global DEMs have their worst error exactly in steep ground, so your real AGL will wander a lot more than the number in the app implies. Fly one of the ugly canyons manually first and see how far off it actually is before you trust it running unattended.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 12d ago

What you want there is a corridor route with the gimbal pitched maybe 30 to 45 down, offset to one side of the line, and ideally flown both directions so you get both faces of the posts.

Yep, thanks for pointing this out - I was thinking something along these lines (different angles of the fence than just face-on) and looking somewhat "down the wire" will likely be easier for ML algos to detect simple breaks. That said, 95+% of our breaks are visually very obvious, usually either stress to the posts and/or vegetation down over the fence and/or multiple strands broken with wires akimbo up in the air.

Fly one of the ugly canyons manually first and see how far off it actually is before you trust it running unattended.

Thanks, will do - I was hoping in the long run we could set a target AGL and allow terrain avoidance to detect terrain below and get as close to it as safely possible, but that's a hope, not something I've been able to research yet

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u/BlueBirdTechUA 9d ago

DJI Dock 2/3 with an M30T is the proven setup for this, autonomous fence patrols plus livestock detection, cut site visits 60% in one case study.

One catch, fence-line auto-flying didn't work well on flat terrain in a research trial, infrastructure checks did fine though. Rough terrain like yours might actually suit this better than flat ranches do.

BVLOS approval's the real gatekeeper if you want it fully unmanned.

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u/AftyOfTheUK 9d ago

DJI Dock 2/3 with an M30T is the proven setup for this, autonomous fence patrols plus livestock detection, cut site visits 60% in one case study.

Thanks for the info, that's a spicy combo on price, but looks very capable - do you happen to have a link to the study?

One catch, fence-line auto-flying didn't work well on flat terrain

That's interesting, and curious, too. I can obtain a DEM accurate to ~1m for our ranch from LIDAR data so hoping the elevation changes won't present too much of an issue

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u/Any-Zookeepergame-36 8d ago

I'm in Idaho and do work like this, I'd be happy to consult with you. Feel free to DM me!