Dear Victor Klemas

As a mapping expert by myself, it was an interesting question on a challenging task.

1. However, i need more information since your question is still too broad. I need to know what is your desired scale? Most of the times, cost of quadcopter is relatively cheap but the cost can be varies according to the desired scale and output. 

2. If i at your place, i would determine what kind of output and scale that i want. Attaching an advanced IR or visible sensor would increase cost and maybe made quadcopter not an effective platform.

3. The cheapest would be a quadcopter with a digital camera with `a picture` displaying your interested study site. I think it can achieved with budget around 500 USD (including processing fee, etc).

I hope my answer would be useful to assist you in your project.

Regards,

Rizal 

Victor,

To consider which UAV you want to work with, you first need to know what distance/area you want to cover with one flight. Once you have your camera and eventually camera plus GPS or other sensor (300 to 800 grammes) a solution at 500-1000 US$ like the phantom will only provide you a solution for 10-15 minutes with no wind.... a bigger UAV like the one I presently use at UC cost about 40k US$ has a payload of a kilogram and can fly longer, but it is particularly ineffective in high winds. For this reason our team has build a fix-wing that we use in Antarctica and in coastal areas... but again it isn't really cheap.

As Rizal said, if you need a more precise answer you may want to tell us what you want to map, with what sensor, at what resolution and how big is your area.

Best

Christopher

Vic,

A group here at Cornell has selected a DJI Spreading Wings S1000 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for work over test agricultural plots.  It was selected because it was relatively affordable and has individually articulated rotor arms, which give smoother flight and subsequently less motion blur than other drones in its price range.  A dual array of modified Canon 110 Elph cameras was chosen as the imaging system modified to image in five bands between two cameras: blue, green, red,

NIR (680nm to 800nm), and NIR (800nm to 900nm).  The cameras provide good ground resolution (1-3 cm @ 300 ft depending on blur) and are relatively light (320g total for the two cameras excluding mounting hardware and gimbal) which allows for a longer flight and better control. At $775 each the cameras are also much less expensive than most six band imaging arrays on the market. This may not be the best solution for your application, but hopefully it will give you a reference point.

Cheers,

Bill

Vic, are you thinking about coastal wetlands?  There would be a steady breeze along coasts that you would need to contend with.  Also, there is a fair chance for wetlands of any type that an unscheduled landing could drop a pricey drone and payload into water.  I wondered whether something like styrofoam blocks could be mounted underneath as floats, but that would increase the profile in the wind.  Alternatively, everything may need to be waterproofed (or well insured ;).

Dear professor klemas,

please give some extra information about the area and your resolution so that we can tell about the costs.

I attached a paper that maybe helpful to you.

sincerely.

milad malekzadeh

Thank you Mr. Thomas R. Baker I would like to know if possible what the price of a drone2map license for academics and research issues for institutes that already have an ArcGIS license ?