We have some money to purchase a UAV (quad-copter) for use in a field mapping course and student projects in our department. I'm not familiar with all of their capabilities, but I'd like something that has GPS, easy ArcGIS integration and the ability to capture multi-spectral (visible, IR and perhaps thermal imagery) via a camera or one that can be mounted using a gimbal. We'd look to do high-scale work, so it would not need to go high for very long. It does not need to be too complex - just something that is fairly intuitive and provide students with a good basis for what they may see in the future.
Pardon my ignorance, but I have a couple of questions:
1 - is it easier to just get a UAV with a camera? Do these cameras have various filters?
2 - if not, what is the best type of camera for use for a UAV that we are able to mount?
3 - what types of UAVs have you used in the past? Which ones would you suggest? We'd like to keep it as inexpensive as possible, so we'd probably hope to spend less than $2,000 or so.
We're pretty unfamiliar with this new technology, but students have expressed interest and us as faculty hope to learn a lot from this too. Thank you for any insight.
