SenseFly to Unveil eBee Plus with Survey Grade Mapping

Parrot‘s commercial drone company senseFly has announced that they will unveil the eBee Plus system next week at the InterGEO conference in Hamburg, Germany.

The new eBee Plus system enhances eBee’s existing fixed-wing commercial drones, industry leaders in many applications including agriculture.  The new system adds a photogrammetry-optimised RGB sensor and next-gen flight & data management software.  The additions will provide survey grade photogrammetric mapping capabilities to the eBee solution.

“The eBee Plus system is the ultimate tool for geospatial organisations that demand photogrammetric-quality mapping,” said senseFly’s CEO, Jean-Christophe Zufferey. “With its unique upgradeable RTK/PPK functionality and flight time of almost an hour, this simple, largely automated solution is perfect for professionals working in fields such as surveying, construction and GIS who require a highly efficient method of data collection with survey-grade accuracy.”

The eBee Plus offers geospatial professionals 3 key benefits:

1. Large coverage for optimal efficiency: the eBee Plus can map more hectares per flight than any drone in its weight class.

2. High Precision on Demand (HPoD): the eBee Plus includes built-in RTK/PPK functionality, activated immediately or later on demand, for survey-grade accuracy that the operator controls.

3. Project-perfect payloads: a camera is available to suit every application, including the new senseFly S.O.D.A. (supplied)—the first sensor developed specifically for
drone photogrammetry work.

Survey grade-ready

One of the eBee Plus’ main features – which the company describes as a “breakthrough innovation”  is High Precision on Demand (HPoD). This is a paid enhancement which allows real-time and post-processing correction (RTK/PPK) functionality. “Once activated by the user, this paid enhancement boosts the system’s achievable horizontal/vertical absolute accuracy to 3 cm/5 cm without the need for ground control points—dramatically reducing expensive, time-consuming field work,” says a company statement.  eBee Plus customers can try RTK/PPK activation free for four weeks (activated on demand when the customer chooses.)

Payload flexibility

“The eBee Plus can carry the full line of senseFly fixed-wing RGB, thermal and multispectral sensors, including the recently introduced Parrot Sequoia for agricultural work and the thermoMAP for producing thermal maps,” says senseFly. “The drone’s camera bay also accepts existing eBee payloads, while the senseFly S.O.D.A. is itself backward-compatible with operators’ existing eBee and eBee RTK drones. eMotion 3, meanwhile, can also be used to manage the flights and data of all senseFly UASs2, both fixed-wing and rotary.”

The eBee Plus photogrammetric mapping system is available to order immediately via senseFly’s global network of distributors (www.senseFly.com/wheretobuy).