Delving into a jungle mystery

January 9, 2020 - By GPS World Staff

Most of Munich is an ultra-modern German city, albeit one of the most expensive cities in Europe, where you can travel anywhere by tram, automobile, S-Bahn, rail or taxi. But why bother when you have the opportunity and thrill of walking through the old city center and have Bavarians greet you with "May God greet you" or "God bless"? — what a way to say hello. That experience, which brings back fond memories — more on that in my main column — combined with the wonderful aromas from bakeries and early morning baristas hard at work, which are hard to pass by, made the short walk to the Residenz München seem all too short; and then you are there — greeted with the magnificence of the Munich Satellite Summit venue.

Image: PrecisionHawk

Earlier this year, a drone pilot and two data scientists from PrecisionHawk traveled to the Philippines for a unique mission — to fly drones equipped with lidar sensors over a dense rainforest to map ancient trade paths. The aim was to find buried treasure left by the Japanese during World War II.

PrecisionHawk was approached by the producers of a new History Channel show to help them navigate the Filipino rainforests. Through the combination of air and ground sensors, including a DJI M600 UAV equipped with a Riegl miniVUX lidar sensor and a Sony a6000 camera, PrecisionHawk staff produced a colorized 3D map of the forest.

The History Channel aired the series premiere of “Lost Gold of World War II” on March 19, 2019; all eight episodes are now available for streaming. The second episode features visuals generated by PrecisionHawk, as well as interviews with the drone pilot and data scientists.