The City of Thornton Parks Department intends to purchase two (2) drones. One (1) drone will be used for the purpose of mapping and one (1) drone will be used as an agricultural/pesticide spray drone.
The mapping drone will enhance Parks ability to map and tag assets for GIS, as well as allowing Parks to take overhead pictures of projects and volunteer events. Additionally, the drone will be used to map and track invasive weed populations in the open space.
An agricultural spray drone will be used to treat weeds in Thornton open space, especially in areas that are difficult or dangerous to reach on foot. This project will test if the mapping data can be coordinated with the Ag drone to perform systemic, mapped, and recorded weed management in the open space.
The goals of these drones are to:
• Enhance Park’s aerial photography and GIS mapping capabilities. Thornton currently uses Esri for its GIS mapping software and it is the standard since all our GIS data, maps and applications are run using the Esri platform.
• Provide an aerial spray capability for areas in open space that are difficult or dangerous to access on the ground, or will be damaged by vehicle traffic.
• Test the capability of visual aerial surveys to map and identify plant species, and to synthesize plant map data with spray mapping for semi-autonomous weed spraying with an aerial spray drone.
• Develop the knowledge and skills of Parks workers to be able to manage and utilize drones for maintenance applications.
