Inside Issue #8 of IFT Quarterly Magazine
The latest issue of IFT Quarterly Magazine looks at the work behind reliable drone data: validating a fix in the field, building research workflows that repeat flight after flight, and capturing a baseline before the storms hit. From the Central Coast bluffs to Iowa’s corn and soybean plots, this issue is about testing, repeatability, and showing the work.
Featured in this issue:
How Cal Poly, the City of Pismo Beach, and IFT are mapping the Shell Beach bluffs ahead of a forecast strong El Niño. The IF800 Tomcat flies the Sony LR1 and Sentera 65R against an IF1200 LiDAR reference dataset to answer a question many agencies face: how close can high-resolution photogrammetry get to LiDAR?
Validating the GS-ONE Radio Range in the Field
Four back-to-back flights at Soda Lake in the Carrizo Plain comparing the original and updated GS-ONE firmware, and why how the radio recovers on a degraded link matters more than a single max-range number.
How Iowa State’s Remote Sensing and Imaging Lab runs flights, processing, and data delivery for more than ten research groups with the IF800 and IF1200, collecting 6 terabytes this season with one pilot and turning data around by the next morning.
Profile: Beckham Richmond
IFT’s Engineering Manager on going from intern in 2021 to leading the IF800 and IF1200 engineering team, and what it took to track down and fix premature RTL on the GS-ONE.
Issue #8 also includes technical FAQs on the GS-ONE firmware update, controller upgrades, propeller and battery care, and rentals and demos, plus an early look at how much one Pismo bluff changed in just 10 days.
