CRC for Spatial Information

The Ergon ROAMES (Remote Observation Automated Modelling Economic Simulation) project plans to capture aerial photography and LiDAR images over its entire powerline infrastructure each year. The main business driver for Ergon is the saving in the management of vegetation near its powerlines however, the information captured in this project will have much broader application.

Light aircraft equipped with LiDAR would begin collecting data late 2011. The data would then be uploaded onto Google’s cloud and Ergon plan to use Google Earth Builder to process data into spatial layers, and present it in an interactive, 3D visualisation environment.

CRCSI are contributing to the project in a number of ways, specifically through research to extend the aircraft path planning, data capture and flight assist concepts to optimise flight management and planning for large scale infrastructure aerial surveys. The outcome will be applied to both highly automated manned and unmanned aircraft to reduce costs and optimise data capture.