Product Review
SKS Engineers, LLC Provides Aerial Drone Surveying

Founded in 2011, SKS Engineers provides civil, structural, electrical, geotechnical, mechanical, and plumbing engineering, as well as land development, land surveying services, material testing, and quality control services.

In early 2019, the Decatur, IL-based firm acquired an aerial drone with a camera for photo scanning and began offering drone-enabled surveying for engineering design.

According to Principal Matt Schwenk, “A drone flies over an existing structure or field and takes pictures that provide data points which are processed to create a 2D or 3D model that can be entered into AutoCAD for site planning or engineering design. This provides an easier way to gather information used to model the location of legs, spouts, tower members, or perhaps add a truss to another bin, etc.”

Much More Affordable

“This technology has been available for a long time, but using drones to obtain the photos is much more affordable than hiring a helicopter,” says Schwenk. “This system provides much more information than conducting a ground survey and helps us as we analyze layouts and structures. It also helps us plan for the future.”

— September/October 2020 GRAIN JOURNAL