Oliver Brewster

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Traditionally, vegetation monitoring of regional areas has been completed manually via aerial photography (airplane) or off-road vehicle. Following the development of drone technology in the last decade, this project aims to determine whether drones are a superior alternative for completing this work. This was done by capturing a pipeline corridor next to the Bullabulling pump station, Western Australia, using multispectral drone imagery (DJI Inspire 1 fitted with a Parrot Sequoia camera). The drone imagery was used to create an ortho-image and 3D surface model which includes the various spectral bands picked up by the sensor. This information is then used to classify different elements in the scene. These elements include the plant and equipment spatial position, vegetation, ground and water, which are typically assessed in track and infrastructure maintenance.