December 4, 2015 By Mohamed Massaquoi
While drones and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have generated quite a lot of interest in the construction industry, professionals who regard the technology as valuable are now putting mechanisms in place to introduce it in the country.
The first Sierra Leonean to have landed a survey drone in the country is the Sierra Leone Peoples Party Member of Parliament representing constituency 07 in the Kailahun district, Hon. Abu Jajua.
In an exclusive interview with this medium yesterday, he said the equipment worth US$40,000, adding that the new technology will greatly improve land surveying in the country especially when surveyors have been facing huge challenges in the sector.
Hon Jajua said the equipment has been officially launched at the Hasting airfield just outside Freetown, with officials from the Ministry of Lands, Housing and the Environment present.
“Our large scale agricultural project site will tap the opportunity to study their crop growth, drainage and water management from the processed aerial photos and accurate GPS,” he said.
He added: “The drone can vastly reduce the time spent collecting accurate data from the sky – in the form of geo-referenced digital aerial images, with resolutions as sharp as 1.5 cm (0.6 in) per pixel and one can gather millions of data points in one short flight in the process, more time still can be saved by using a survey-grade drone.”