The Sanborn Map Company has been granted approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to commercially operate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in civil airspace under the Section 333 Exemption. The approval was announced on 3 June and allows Sanborn Map Company to provide its UAS services with immediate effect.
In order to validate its geospatial data collection capabilities, Sanborn Map Company completed several test flights and data collection projects. According to the company, the results of these tests were high-resolution, engineering-grade digital terrain models with accuracy greater than two inches, vibration-free video and multispectral frame imagery at sub-centimetre resolution.
Sanborn Map Company's UAS-based services include site mapping, damage response and assessment, highway survey and accident mapping, volumetric assessment and asset estimation, and precision agriculture. It also provides image processing and analysis for the collected UAS imagery, cloud storage of customer data and image processing and distribution for other UAS operators.
The company operates a vertical take-off and landing UAS with a payload capacity of 15lbs that can carry video, infrared, hyperspectral, thermal and multispectral sensors. The UAS also features a military-grade autopilot with GPS waypoints and laser altimeters.
Sanchit Agarwal, director of mapping operations, Sanborn Map Company, said: 'Sanborn's UAS technology is a great fit for a host of customers. Among them are police and fire departments, agricultural operations, utilities, oil and gas concerns, emergency response planners, local governments, mine operators and the media.'
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