2 – 5 June 2012 Training with Hannes and Hans from Austria

 Image taken by Grid-IT 1 week after UAS delivery

We have been discussing high accuracy surveying through the use of UAVs for a few months now with a company in Innsbruck named GRID-IT. The company is a reseller of ERDAS, has won some interesting contracts in the Alpine areas and wanted to expand their services into the new market of low level aerial survey using small UAVs. GRID-IT aren’t without UAV experience and have been experimenting with various own-builds over the past years, including the Bormatec Maja.  However they found that the route to a successful survey using a sUAV isn’t an easy one, takes up a lot of time and money and often results in poor data.  Hence they started to make enquiries about turnkey (complete systems such as Mavinchi, Cropcam, Sensefly, SmartPlanes and QuestUAV).  They decided that QuestUAV was the right one for them and are now, at the time of writing this (one week after their training in UK), successfully flying their QuestUAV 200 system in the Alpine foothills (see image above).

After a series of emails and Skype calls throughout May with Hannes (Director of GRID-IT) both companies felt comfortable to proceed with the sale and training.  Hannes in accompaniment with an associate, Hans, (yes remembering names on this particular training was very easy!!!) came over in early June.  They found some incredibly cheap flights to Edinburgh and travelled down on the train to Alnmouth (a good train booking website is here), where we picked them up, took them to the workshop for a welcome and discussions and then took them in the evening to their hotel at the Schooner Inn in Alnmouth.

Hannes wanted to take his UAS system back with him so we had prepared his entire system beforehand and flew it with him on training whilst he was here. The system was all designed to pack in large international travel tough/carry box.   Hannes and Hans effectively had three days in and around the QuestUAV workshop where we could transfer information, iron out problems and do flights.  We found GRID-IT staff to be exceptionally skilled at their work with a very good understanding of IT systems and architecture, brought about through many years in the survey industry, and they even helped in an information exchange with us over NDVI issues.  Thanks Hannes and Hans.

One of our big problems was sorting out international differences in the preparation of laptops and lat-long systems etc.  This all had to be done before we could fly. IT problems take an unknown amount of time to solve and for each hour taken up there is an hour less for training. We have since decided to promote the purchase of a laptop as part of the equipment list.  The laptop will by setup by us in the workshop prior to manufacturer training with all software installed, working and talking to the aircraft.

Hans preparing for launch. Red tips chosen for
greater snow visibility.

Interestingly we had negotiated a process of demo first then decision to buy (or not). Always before a big sale (more with commercial companies rather than universities) there are concerns on both the part of the buyer and the manufacturer about genuiness of interest.  The buyer wants to know that they aren’t going to get a system that might have been advertised well but doesn’t actually perform, and the manufacturers are always concerned about companies or people wanting to find out about QuestUAV, general sUAV manufacturing know-how and secrets as quickly and easily as possible for their own ends (and, yes, we’ve been in that situation a few times!).  We did the normal tip-toeing around each other for a while, trying to protect our individual interests, but at the end of the day it simply wasn’t needed. I wish there was a better way to get past this.

Though the weather prevented flying on the first day, we all felt comfortable enough to proceed with training and forego the demo.  Hannes felt that he had seen enough of the system and its performance to make the commitment to come over to the UK in the first place so the system was pretty much sold anyway before he arrived, and only something fairly major would make a change.  So the loss of the demo wasn't a great loss. Interestingly I don’t think we ever had a discussion as to whether it was bought or not – it just seemed accepted as time went on.

Our data loggers have only recently been released by SkyCircuits and still had minor bugs in their operation during training.  The primary issue is finding SD cards that work with the system. Most SD cards are designed to capture large files (typically large .jpg files for photos) rather than the tiny files that are written in data logging. We were right in the middle of another  “yes it’s working – oh no it’s not” during training that I find annoyingly unprofessional, but it’s the nature of the beast in something that is novel and cutting edge.  Thankfully Hannes was patient and helpful as we worked through this.  We now have the right SD cards and software that works, and of crucial importance, the written procedures that accompany success with the equipment. However, the holdup during training added unnecessary stresses because logger data was required to match imagery position and time for accurate Photoscan and ERDAS processing.

Power off autonomous landing

The weather soon improved though and the normal training with QuestUAV phases of design, mission preparation, flight checklists, deployment, launch, flights and landing all went well. With the initial bugs ironed out we had a good time in the sunshine and in our training field, watching the aircraft fly and do it’s thing whilst we relaxed and watched.

When most of the flying training was complete Hannes displayed his excellent flying skills whilst flying under Pilot control (full pilot control but with stability assistance). He landed the UAV just a few metres from the crew. So the challenge was set! Hans then took off to do better, but ended up providing an added dimension to training when he was flying it on his approach to land. The flightpath was slightly wide and the UAV suddenly disappeared with a sound of breaking branches as it hit the top section of a tree. It’s forgivable because we each thought the UAV was on a good flightpath to land but the perspective of this tree against it’s background put it closer than expected.  No panic… we were prepared.  Hans was a bit embarrassed but it gave us the chance to set in motion something we have never done before with QuestUAV aircraft – a full UAV recovery from a tree.  The recovery went flawlessly with the Aeroloops (see pics) and the aircraft was flying five minutes later after a quick checkover.  There was no damage at all, structural or cosmetic, apart from a few twigs stuck in the foam and no repairs had to be made.  The QuestUAV is designed to be pretty tough!

Recovery with two poles

Safe and sound, completely undamaged.
Wings and Pitot tube are designed to separate.

Hans launching again 5 minutes after tree recovery

The logger was working well by this stage and even showed the flightpath into the tree, the recovery to ground level and the walk back to the flying site.  Cool!

In all it was great working with Hannes and Hans.  They are a great team, professional, patient and skilled.  They also came knowing something that is invaluable, and it goes something like this: no matter what any sUAV advertiser promotes, it is never the case that any sUAV is autonomous and “does it all the work by itself”.  Hannes came knowing that and willing to learn the knowledge and systems that go alongside the system to make it as safe and productive as possible and to protect the investment he has made both for his productivity and his company integrity. We reckon that if a person, company or establishment already has RC or UAV experience then a minimum period of time from first call to full operation is expected to be at least two months.  For a company, person or establishment with no RC or UAV experience this needs to be extended to six months. This obviously isn’t full time but includes the gentle shift in skills and awareness gained by reading, training and discussion in order to display the required level of safety and competence to command an unmanned aircraft.

Happy guys at the end of the day. Look closely
and you might sees some tiny scratches from the tree.

On the Monday afternoon we packed the kit into the large explorer box. Unnecessary packaging had to be removed but, apart from batteries (which went in Hans backpack) it all fitted in.  Not having scales we estimated 25kg in prep for the check-in at the airport.  We got it wrong.  It was actually 35kg! It still went but it’s something we are prepared for now with scales to measure weights prior to departure.

Hannes is now home with his aircraft, flying and operating in his local area - in the process of becoming fully operational. We wish him the greatest success and look forward to the time when we expect to do more work together.


And from Hannes about two weeks after his training and many successful flights


GRID-IT is a small company located in Austria (Innsbruck), specialised in Geoinformatics and Remote Sensing. Since we are the Austrian reseller for ERDAS software, and since we did many remote sensing projects, many of them related to natural disasters and crisis management, we thought we could start to create our own remote sensing data using UAV's. Therefore, our focus is on monitoring of natural hazards in an alpine environment, which leads to some special requirements on autopilot navigation.

First we though, we could compile a system of our own, did some tests with the MAJA from Bormatec (a very nice UAV, but not quite the right tool for our applications in remote alpine areas). We soon discovered that finding the right components, which would smoothly work together was a very time consuming challenge.

After that, we did quite some research on different UAV providers, some of them in Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Poland, United States, even Pakistan (not seriously though). Finally, we found QuestUAV, got in touch with Nigel, had some very good discussions and decided to order a Quest200 together with a training in Amble. The reason for this decision was a common understanding of the requirements, the concept of a gimballed camera, which we were having in mind as well, and of course the price.

During the three-days training we found that the QuestUAV team are very nice people, excellent to work with and very professional. Since we want to carry out photogrammetric analysis of the imagery, the on-board logger is an essential part for our needs. We had to solve some problems, but now the logger and the whole system is working perfectly well.

What I really like about the QuestUAV systems is the launch concept. It is so easy and safe. And I think, the SkyCircuit autopilot is a very nice and powerful piece of technology - I think there is so much more potential in that component. In an alpine environment with narrow valleys, it is important to know how the autopilot is setting the aircraft's route. I hope, we'll get some more detailled documentation on the autopilot, soon.

So, to finalise this short introduction, we are really happy with our Quest200 system. We are currently running test with different flight plans to come up with a strategy on flight plan optimisation. We already wrote our own flight plan software, which allows us to load and visualise both the SPX flight plan and the logger data. We just recently added a module to georeference the images using the timestamp as link to the logger data. With that, we are ready to become operational, with a fully tested workflow.

Thanks, Nigel, for the good cooperation.

Hannes