Mission Overview
For this lab, I acted as a visual observer while my partner acted as the Pilot in command. We were assigned to fly a grid mission at an altitude of 350 ft. We used Measure Ground Control as our platform to conduct our flight. Our camera settings were set at 80% overlap with the camera lens set to 90 degrees so nadir (straight down towards the ground). Weather conditions associated with the mission were fair. Clouds were scattered but it was mostly an overcast sky with variable winds blowing from the North to the Northeast at 5-10 knots, but these winds started to pick up midway through the mission but did not cause any problems for the Mavic 2 pro which was used as our vehicle. There were a few potential hazards potted in the vicinity of the conducted mission mostly attributed to other groups conducting the same mission but at different altitudes. At the time of takeoff, which was 2:45 ET, there were a total of two other groups flying their missions. One group was flying at 100 feet while the other group was flying at 200 feet. Due to the sizeable gap in the altitudes used to conduct the mission and given we were flying at 350 feet with some basic crew resource management of acknowledging verbalized flight intentions the mission was conducted without incident was completed smoothly and professionally. Something noteworthy is the usage of the 5 GCP’s that were laid out. The order in which they were laid out started with #1 being set down first and 5 last. However, after the missions, the proper way of picking up the GCP's is in reverse order so starting with 5 and ending with 1.
Discussion
After completing this lab, I was better able to identify the relationship the mission altitude has with the image quality as well as the relationship between the mission altitude and the duration of the flight. Regarding the relationship between mission altitude and image quality, the relationship I can identify is that the higher the altitude you fly at the more rough-looking the pixels will be. The reasoning for this is because when flying at higher altitudes and acquiring data, the pixels that make up each image are smaller as your altitude is higher hence requiring more pixels to complete form an image. Regarding the relationship of the altitude the mission was flown at the mission time, it is important to note that the higher the altitude the shorter the flight time. The reasoning for this is because when you are at a higher altitude you have a greater vantage point or ariel view if you will which allows the drone to cover more space in a shorter period.
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