First Edition of TUSExpo Deserves a Continuation

From 4-6 February 2015, The Unmanned Systems Expo 2015 (TUSExpo 2015) was held in the Dutch city of The Hague. The event brought European and global companies from the entire unmanned systems supply chain into contact with customers and end users. More than 1,500 visitors from 69 countries attended the first edition of the event. The follow-up is scheduled for 2016.

The focus of the TUSExpo conference was mainly on the services rather than on the technology of drones (air, ground and water). The reason for that is UAVs are in essence little more than flying sensors, and that the data acquired forms the basis for a wide range of applications, according to the organising committee.

During the three days there were over 65 speakers from all over the world. There was a special geomatics session – Geo Services, Geo Mapping – where several interesting speakers presented as follows:

• Dennis Devriendt, technical director, 4CGrid, ‘Use of UAVs for mapping purposes’

• Geoff Sawyer, secretary general, European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC), ‘Geospatial services reaching new markets’

• Aleksandra Sima, researcher, Uni Research, ‘UAVs and photogrammetry for 3D geological outcrop modelling’

• Rasmus Nyholm Jørgensen, senior scientist, Aarhus University, ‘Turning UAS-based data into knowledge for the agricultural domain’

• Jesper Falk, head of section, surveying & land administration, COWI, ‘Advanced use of UAV data’.

The speakers gave an overview of the developments and also showed that the use of UAVs in the mapping industry is still in its infancy.