Customer Highlight: A Chat with Eric Harkins of Remote Sensors Inc.

Tell Us About Your Company…

Remote Sensors Inc. is a relatively new organization; however, our experienced team has been working in the industry for many years. Our company is primarily a drone services provider located in the Southeast, with an expansive network of pilots covering the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and more. We use LIDAR and photogrammetry for creating highly accurate data and derivatives. Project requests include DOTs, stormwater, land development, civil engineering and survey firms, government pilot programs, and company R&D.

What Led to Your Decision to Add Drone LIDAR to your Services…

For starters, we wanted to differentiate ourselves from the competition. There are many companies offering photogrammetric solutions, but many have not adopted LIDAR as of now. We’ve found LIDAR is easier to work with, less computing resource intensive, and has a faster turnaround time than photogrammetry. The processing of photogrammetric data can be time intensive, whereas LIDAR allows us to quickly generate a point cloud and begin extracting the deliverables requested. The time savings has led to less staffing requirements, the ability to take on more projects, and most importantly deliver faster results. Being based in the Southeast, vegetation is a bigger problem than other places. While photogrammetry has its advantages, we knew due to the vegetation element we needed to incorporate LIDAR.

What Led to Your Decision to Choose our True View 3DIS…

After researching available technology on the market, we selected GeoCue’s True View 410 technology which allows us to collect LIDAR and photogrammetry simultaneously. Compared to other companies, GeoCue also includes their extensive software tools with the package. The tools included within the True View EVO software, allow us to extensively quality check the data and ensure our deliverables exceed customer expectations.

Actual Client Feedback...

“I am amazed, the data is extremely tight. We will definitely be calling you on the next project!”

Walk Us Through A Typical Project…

Planning is everything. We make sure to put in our due diligence on the front-end to ensure we can meet and exceed customer expectations. This process involves an extensive evaluation of the project site, including:

• Vegetation assessment (including evaluation of mission planning parameters)

• Addressing any airspace conflicts

• Coordination between project managers, property owners, and surveying partners

• Establishing and verifying a control strategy with surveying partners

• Collecting and presenting a pre-project ortho of the site

On a typical project, we mobilize within 72 hours of the project request. Within a short 24-hour timeframe we can deliver a colorized, georeferenced point cloud. This is typically sent as a DXF or ASCII file with 1 foot contours and a surface model extracted.

Surviving the Pandemic…

There has certainly been a fair share of obstacles to overcome, such as difficulties with in-person visits. However, we have found many opportunities have developed due to company staffing issues and other lockdown restrictions. It has put us in a good light with our clients to be able to keep projects and business flowing for them during these uncertain times.

We have used other solutions in the past, but I cannot say enough about the support we have received from GeoCue during this time, they have helped us stay up and running with

our clients.

Eric Harkin