Dependability/accuracy of ground station flight planning?

[W. Reimer]

I've just had an f550 built up for me, and set up with a BT, mini iOSD, GoPro Zenmuse gimbal, Fatshark 5.8ghz FPV system, aeroxcraft landing gear, etc...
In addition to flying this machine for fun, I also intend for it to do a little work on occasion.

I live in the middle of the Canadian prairies...LOTS of agriculture all around. I've had a bunch of farmers express interest in seeing what this Hex will do in terms of
field mapping; evaluating visible moisture levels prior to seeding, growth patterns, evaluating the need for herbicides, evaluating damage to crops from weather (excessive rain, hail or wind)...basically everything you can evaluate and/or quantify with conventional photos. I am also looking at the possibility of adding an IR sensor to the mix, for looking at fungal infections in grain crops, etc.

Obviously, I can fly these sorts of flights either LOS or FPV, but if the ground station is accurate enough, that would certainly add to the whole equation.

For those of you with experience in using the ground station for flight planning; what has your experiences been like? Is it an accurate enough process that I could rely on these "missions" to be accurate within 50-75 feet? Have you had any "why the *(^( did it do that??" moments with it?

Any and all input would be greatly appreciated!

 

[kloner]

it is extremely accurate. within feet, like single digit feet

 

[Tahoe Ed]

It also has built in patterns that it will fly. I think if you are dealing with the rectangular plot, it would work really well.

 

[W. Reimer]

Thanks guys, that's good to hear! Now I guess the biggest question remaining is figuring out what sort of acreage I can effectively cover in each flight. I am flying 2, 3S 5000mah and should be able to see 12-14min flight durations on 10 in. props. I did a little highly unscientific testing last fall with my Phantom, shooting stills at one every 2 seconds from approx 100 ft. altitude. To get a decent level of overlap between frames for stitching images together was the tricky part; if the ground station's accuracy is that good, I should be able to come up with a fairly reliable formula of altitude combined with forward speed to get good resolution and maximum coverage. Ideally, I'm hoping to get good detail on 10 acres or better per flight. If nothing else, it's a good enough reason to dust off my rusty mathematics skills....

 

[Carapau]

You will want to fly well above 100ft to survey a field otherwise it will just take too many photos to stitch it all together and you are also likely to get blurring of your photos as you will want to fly reasonably quickly in order to cover the optimal acreage in a flight. In the UK we can only fly to a max of 400ft but this is pretty good for this sort of job- I wish we could go to approx 100ft for this sort of work but alas we can't.