The Huntington District Geospatial Branch recently integrated two new pieces of equipment into the Geospatial Equipment fleet to help further the options for product deliverable to the District and our partners. Both pieces of equipment were delivered near the end of fiscal year2016 and both have been placed into service on projects in support of the Huntington District mission.
The team expanded their Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) squadron by adding a Vertical Takeoff and Landing System (VTOL) Phantom DJI Phantom IV. The Huntington District worked with the Army Aviation Directorate to acquire the first Airworthiness Release for this model of unit inside the Department of Army. Since that time four additional Districts have applied for Airworthiness Releases based on the template created by the Huntington Team.
The first project to utilize the DJI was completed at Bluestone Lake. The process for acquisition of aerial imagery for Bluestone began with Mike Koon and Craig Ashby completing the paperwork and maps required for submission and approval to the Army Aviation Engineering Directorate for the Bluestone site specific Airworthiness Release. Craig Ashby and John Johnson then created all of the required documents for submission the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the Certificate of Authorization by Notification for the Bluestone Lake site. Once all approvals were in place, Stephen Caldwell and David Chestnut mobilized to the site to complete the aerial survey. This survey consisted of making flights of the Phase 3 work at Bluestone prior to the site being watered up. The survey also included fly in videos of the site and images downstream of the existing stilling basin in an attempt to located a geologic fault.
The second item added to the Geospatial Fleet was the Trimble MX2 Mobile Scanner unit. The MX2 is a dual head Light Imaging, Detection, And Ranging (LiDAR) Scanner and can capture up to 76,000 points per second at speeds up to 55 miles per hour.
The team has already applied the technology to several projects inside the Huntington District. Working with the Operations Dredge Team the survey crew composed of Aaron Ansell, David Chestnut, and Stephen Caldwell have captured all of the overhead wire crossings on the Kanawha River in response to an incident in during the June floods in which a tow struck an overhead crossing. The team was able to determine that the wire in question was actually 11 feet lower than what was listed on the navigation charts. The team also worked with the Dredge Team to capture shoreline topography along two areas of the Kanawha River that will be candidates for streambank restoration projects in the near future.
The team has also used the MX2 on two land projects making scans of the Mohicanville Dike #2 and the Roseville Levee. The scans will be used to evaluate the current condition of the structures as well as providing a basis for future comparisons of the structures.
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