Engineering and design services company Wood has adopted the Delair UX11 high-performance UAV drone for its work in site planning and asset management on quarry and mining projects in the western US.
Wood is initially deploying the drone to do high accuracy, 3D topographic surveys and materials quantification for mineral mining in Idaho and Wyoming. It is the first fixed-wing UAV Wood has deployed in the western US.
“For the scale of the projects we are performing, and the accuracy required, adopting the Delair UX11 was a logical choice,” said Greg Meinecke, technical services manager at Wood. "Its long-range capabilities allow us to cover areas not feasible with other data collection methods like hovercraft drones or by foot, so it reduces the cost and time involved. It integrates well with our existing work flows, and features such as the PPK function deliver additional benefits in terms of the precision and flexibility required in challenging environments."
Wood is deploying the drone in remote areas where its heavy civils team is performing extensive excavation and site preparation for phosphate mining activities, a project covering more than 200 acres. Of critical importance for operations is an ability to precisely quantify the volume of materials being removed to ensure a high degree of accuracy in planning and invoicing.
The UX11 UAV fixed-wing drone, which was supplied by Delair through its regional reseller Frontier Precision, features a hardware-software platform that is designed to provide highly accurate images for survey-grade mapping. It also has on-board processing capabilities and real-time, long-range control via 3G/4G cellular networks or radio links.
