Highway corridor mapping with the eBee X

Geospatial firm Geographica used one of its four eBee X fixed-wing drones with the RGB Aeria X camera to map an 8 km stretch of highway that connects the capital Sofia to the city of Burgas, on the Black Sea coast.

It was a demonstration project to showcase the value of drone mapping and data analytics for various government agencies in Bulgaria. The agencies responsible for the country’s road construction, maintenance and infrastructure management.

In addition to operational efficiency and safety while flying over people (OOP) and over moving vehicles (OOMV), the demo highlighted the value of drone data in the following applications:

• Update the country’s road maps
• Road maintenance
• Vegetation management
• Check infrastructure
• Track construction progress
• Traffic flow planning and simulations

Results:

• Up-to-date highway maps
• Demonstrated value of drone mapping for government agencies
• Efficiency increased: mapped 8 km in 45 minutes
• Unlock smart cities opportunities, such as simulating traffic flow
• Road surface monitoring prior to maintenance
• 3 cm / 1.9 in accuracy
• High-resolution corridor imagery without interrupting traffic
• eMotion and the drone handled irregular terrain