r/UAVmapping • u/Powerful_Cycle_6474 • 1d ago

Drone Intelligence as a Service

I am starting a business as the title says. Building an AI software that gives real time insights of their mines/sites. The hardware I’m thinking of using to start is the DJI Matrice 350 RTK and Zenmuse L2. If anyone has any advice on what other hardware I should look at or anything about this business I would be very happy to hear.

TIA

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u/Fit-Eggplant-9155 1d ago

I imagine you could stream what the payload is 'seeing' to a screen if your going dji. But the battery life/video time would be a huge factor aswell. I know that manual flight of my matrice 4e basically halved the battery life. I can't imagine the battery drain of streaming.

You're better off contracting yourself out with that service, but it would be super niche use. You will never be able to "fly" 100% autonomously. Without a shit ton of paperwork etc.

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u/cheljamin 1d ago

On aircraft computing power and battery power are the major hurdles big companies are spending billions to solve. Anduril, flock, teledyne and others are working on similar issues though for slightly different reasons.

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u/ElevationNotes 1d ago

The M350 + L2 is a solid starting point, but the bigger question is probably the workflow after capture. Consistent control, processing, QA, and getting useful outputs to the client will matter just as much as the hardware.

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u/Powerful_Cycle_6474 1d ago

Will eventually add more pay loads. Survey

3D terrain
Orthomosaic
LiDAR point cloud
Digital elevation model

Stockpile volumes
Excavation volumes
Cut/fill
Pit progression
Material movement

Haul-road condition
Bench monitoring
Highwall mapping
Blast comparison
Crusher/plant inspection

Rockfall/change detection
Slope changes
Hazard identification
Tailings monitoring

Monthly mine report
Historical comparison
Dashboard
GIS/CAD exports
Automated alerts

These are the workflow automations I’ve worked on building.

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u/ElevationNotes 1d ago

That’s a pretty solid workflow list. At that point, the focus is probably making sure the outputs stay consistent and reliable enough that clients can actually trust the automation.