Drone services are relatively new to many customers but finding drone services in the UK is relatively straight forward – but you may ask ‘How do I find a drone service near me?’ or ‘Which drone company delivers drone inspection services I need?’
We operate drone services in London mostly and you can contact us or request a quote here. Importantly we may not be in your area of the county but there are providers in all four corners of Britain to choose from. Whether you are looking for a drone building inspection in London, a thermal drone inspection in Thurso or a drone roof inspection in Essex.
Whilst most drone operators are reputable, asking these key questions will help to ascertain their accreditations, insurance cover and capability. It is essential that, for example, their drones are registered a requirement by law and as stated by the Civil Aviation Authority.
- What qualifications does the drone operator hold?
- Do they have relative PI & PL insurance and required drone insurance?
- Can they provide case studies and references?
- What outputs do you need and what can the drone company provide?
- What specialist area or areas does the drone company offer?
1. Qualifications
Commercial drone companies must, at the minimum have:
- A flyer ID
- Operator ID – which must be displayed on the drone
- An A2C of C certificate or GVC – General Visual “Line of Sight” Certificate
2.Insurance
As standard each company should have Public Indemnity and Public Liability (PI&PL) to a level that is required for your organisation and/or relative to the risks that the project requires. Typically a minimum of £1 million cover.
3. Case Studies and References
Some customers prefer that their details are not shared or used as case studies. However, in many cases non-sensitive information can be redacted. And this allows the drone company to share overall details in the form of case studies so you can search Google for ‘find a drone company near me’, and see their quality and type of work.
4. Outputs
This is a critical requirement. When considering hiring a drone operator providing a clearly defined brief will not only assist you. Above all to filter out providers who cannot deliver for you but also ensure the operator is clear on how they need to plan, choice of drone(s) and software to deliver your project and carry out post-production.
Drone Photography/ drone Video
How will the images you require be used? If on social media for example the resolution doesn’t need to be so high but if it is for TV/film then a much higher production level will be required. The quality of the images that are captured is determined by the drones inbuilt camera(s) resolution, sensor or the payload camera(s).
For high quality photography such as HDR the operator must also be skilled in other areas such as how to use bracketing to create images to meet your brief.
Drone Thermal Inspection
Certain drone companies have equipment that give an indication of the thermal properties of a building or specific area e.g. roof, solar farm. The most common method is to use thermal imaging cameras (sometimes referred to as FliR cameras which are a manufacturer), either built into the drone or added to the drone as a payload to carry out the task.
The drone does not measure ‘actual’ temperature it captures through the difference between infrared light being received by the camera at different points of the surface being inspected via the thermal sensor. The more accurate the sensor, the more accurate the results – so for larger assets like facades, roofs, solar panels a basic sensor will give sufficient information.
For other assets such as powerlines or faults on railways much more accuracy is needed.
Certain drone companies have equipment that give an indication of the thermal properties of a building or specific area e.g. roof, solar farm. The most common method is to use thermal imaging cameras (sometimes referred to as FliR cameras which are a manufacturer), either built into the drone or added to the drone as a payload to carry out the task.
The drone does not measure ‘actual’ temperature it captures through the difference between infrared light being received by the camera at different points of the surface being inspected via the thermal sensor. The more accurate the sensor, the more accurate the results – so for larger assets like facades, roofs, solar panels a basic sensor will give sufficient information.
For other assets such as powerlines or faults on railways much more accuracy is needed.
Drone Building inspections and Drone Asset Inspection
Assets might include cellular towers, powerlines, wind turbines and other detailed equipment. Essentially these require a higher level of accuracy and sharing of the ‘project’ to specialist teams. The operator needs to plan these in conjunction with the reparation team to ensure all relevant elements are captured. And to a level that allows the team, sub-contractors to analyse the outputs and the project manager to be able to control how issues are tagged.
3D Modelling
Land Surveying by Drone
Many well-known drones are sufficient for some basic surveying where, for example, a basic orthogram (overhead view of an area) is required. This may be sufficient to look at land boundaries or other general surveying. It is important to consider that the accuracy will be based on how close and high the drone can fly, camera sensor and a range of other factors.
There are limitations for example if only a GPS drone is used as it is reliant on fixing its position by GPS (the same as a mobile phone does). Results can be as much as 20 metres away from the real world geo location. Useful for some projects but the accuracy is only ‘Relative’.
‘Absolute Accuracy’ level required for detailed planning e.g. for construction, civil engineering or assessing details typically needs to be to +/- 1cm-4cm.
To achieved ‘Absolute Accuracy’ ground control points, rovers and control points are required. Combined with GPS captured data or drones that have onboard RTK receivers these points give ‘real life’ positioning. Essentially the positions are mapped to geo coordinate systems such as OSGB 1936 – used by surveyors and architects. Making the data output and accuracies easier to use in the next phases.
5.Specialist Areas
Drone operators tend to ‘niche’ and specialise in one or many disciplines based on their skills, experience, equipment. The following list is not exhaustive but alongside the points above may include:
- Drone Photography – basic, professional, billboard images
- Drone Videography – basic, advert creation, TV or film production level
- FPV Drone – first person view filming a.k.a. ‘fly throughs’
- Drone Surveying – basic, advanced, surveyors (who have trained for drone capture), agriculture, rivers and coastal, land contouring, quantity surveying
- Drone Building modelling – 3D point clouds, mesh creation
- Drone Building and Asset inspections – basic, powerlines, solar farms, wind turbines, oil rigs
If you would like any further advice, then we would be more than happy to discuss your requirements with you. We don’t deliver all the specialist areas but know other teams in the UK that do, and we are happy to refer you to them.
Complete our contact form or email us on: Contact@S4GDroneServices.com
