UgCS features mission planner with a Google Earth-like 3D interface for UAV mission planning, enabling to navigate the environment more easily. Moreover, a 3D mission planning environment gives more control allowing to view the created flight plan from all angles, taking into account any obstacles such as terrain or buildings.

UgCS offers tools to make aerial surveys and mapping as easy and effortless as possible. Choose one of the pre-installed cameras pre-sets or create a new one to suit your camera. The Area Scan and Photogrammetry tools will automatically calculate the flight path based on the camera settings. Alternatively, the Area Scan and Photogrammetry parameters can be adjusted manually, such as GSD, overlap or desired altitude.

Once UgCS completes the flight path calculation the elevation profile of the route displays the AGL and AMSL altitude of the drone. The exact altitudes above sea level at all points provides the ability to plan drone missions with respect to the surrounding.

The telemetry data window in UgCS displays telemetry data including the charge level of the battery, radio link and GPS signal quality, current course and heading, speed, altitude and much more.

UgCS enables multiple flight modes. The manual flight mode allows controlling the drone with the remote control. Once a flight plan is created and uploaded to the autopilot the Automatic flight mode can be used. For many drones, UgCS also supports Click&Go and Joystick control flight modes.

There are in-built software emulators for quadrocopters and fixed wing drones -emucopter and emuplane. It enables to test a route before uploading it to a real drone. Feel free to test diverse features and settings of UgCS in a safe environment.

To fly automated drone missions precise maps are more important than ever. Import GeoTIFF images as map overlays into UgCS, providing the power to customize the maps to suit your needs.

KML files with boundaries of the survey area can be imported into UgCS to set precise survey location. “LineString” segments of the KML file will be imported as simple Waypoint route. “LinearRing” segment can be imported as “Area scan”,“Photogrammetry” or “Perimeter” route type.

Video tutorial: KML and CSV Data Import into UgCS.

The terrain is always changing, but changes are not always implemented into 3D maps as fast as it is needed. To plan an automated mission in a quarry for the purposes of mapping, surveying or monitoring, DEM should be imported to fly below what would otherwise be considered ground level. The imported data would make the drone able to fly following the terrain downhill or uphill.

Video tutorial: DEM and Map Data Import

UgCS option to create own custom no-fly zones (NFZ) enables to specify regions where flights are prohibited. UgCS will automatically calculate flight path avoiding these areas and make sure that the drone does not enter NFZ while on an automated flight.

UgCS has an in-build geotagging tool, allowing to sync the timestamps of the images with the autopilot’s telemetry data recorded during the flight. After matching the geotags with coordinates and correct altitudes, the images can be used for the further processing. Create map overlays or 3D models to import them into UgCS for more precise mission planning.

UgCS is the best software to plan and fly drone survey missions, it supports almost any UAV platform, providing convenient tools for areal and linear surveys and enabling direct drone control. UgCS enables professional land survey mission planning using photogrammetry technique.

UgCS has the needed tools to plan long routes to cover the extensive distance of powerlines. Any mission can be paused to change the battery or adjust the route and can then be continued. Furthermore, UgCS allows triggering the camera (photo and video mode) only when required, thus reducing the total number of images and the time needed for data analysis. The UgCS Circle tool makes the drone automatically fly around a certain point while facing towards it – making it a useful tool together with video recording to inspect the tower from all around.

UgCS offers many special camera actions allowing to either trigger the camera of the drone by time (every X seconds) or by distance (every X meters). This is an essential tool for continuous photography and high-quality 2D or 3D model generations. Also, with UgCS it is possible to plan missions at a certain altitude above sea level (AMSL), increasing the quality of 3D generated models. All recorded videos are referenced with telemetry, allowing the operator to see exactly where the drone was while filming it.

UgCS is capable of controlling drones equipped with photo and video cameras, and also capable of controlling drones equipped with LIDAR.

To get the images for vegetation indexes, a drone with a camera needs to be sent on an automatic flight over the field. UgCS comes with a built-in Photogrammetry tool which makes aerial surveying an ease. Simply by marking down the field which needs to be scanned on the map and entering a desired ground sample distance (GSD) and the desired image overlap, the flight path is automatically calculated. Then the drone can be sent on an automated mission to collect images for later analysis.

UgCS comes out-of-the-box with a simple and easy to use interface. At the same time, UgCS features multi-drone and multi-operator support, making it possible to use it as a centralized drone management solution: Command center operators to track on map real-time position of the drones used in-field and receive live video streams. Command center operators can mark points of interest on the shared map to indicate locations for field drone operators for detailed inspection or even can take manual control over the drone and its camera. Furthermore, all of the flight data is recorded and stored locally, allowing any flight to be replayed together with the video feed from the drone.