DroneDeploy expands construction services

DroneDeploy’s new Construction Accuracy Package was created to meet the fastest-growing and leading segment of the company’s customer base, Devon Tackels, content marketing manager for DroneDeploy, told AOPA at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International Xponential convention in Denver on May 2.

“Our customers are constantly having to use multiple different apps” to capture basic photos and create maps, 3D models, and related data products, Tackels said. “We’ve simplified and streamlined that process.”

Priced at $6,999 for an annual subscription with three seats, the new construction package has several features developed by popular demand. One is a simple tool that allows a drone to take a series of photographs over a construction site (or other area of interest), and then repeat that process, capturing new images at precisely the same location, any number of times in the following days, weeks, or months.

The new suite of construction-specific applications allows for unlimited inclusion of ground control points, precisely surveyed locations that can significantly increase the accuracy of maps or models and facilitate accurate measurements of terrain, eliminating trees, cars, or other “clutter” that interferes with precision measurement of cuts and fills. The high-precision terrain models can verify completion of excavation and site preparation, or identify areas of deviation.

A third feature built into the suite allows construction companies who do not have their own certificated drone pilots on staff to hire out, using the DroneDeploy interface to plan a mission or project in detail, then request aerial services through an on-demand network. Once a request is submitted, a PDF report including various data products can be delivered within 48 to 72 hours to job sites across the continental United States. Turnaround time may be longer in Alaska and Hawaii, if the service is available in the more remote regions of those states.

Tackels said the Construction Accuracy Package also includes all of the premium features available to business plan customers.

While DroneDeploy was once primarily a tool for precision agriculture, construction has become the No. 1 vertical market for the company. The segment also is a fast-growing vertical across the entire unmanned aircraft industry.

One Part 107 pilot recently talked to AOPA about how individual pilots can find new opportunities in the fast-growing industry.