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Drone Surveying Technology Update
Survey accuracy stopped being a sensor question in 2026. With RTK or PPK and a handful of surveyed control points, two to five centimetres is routine; the failures now come from workflow, not hardware.
Overview
- Published practice for 2026 puts horizontal and vertical accuracy at 2–5 cm with RTK or PPK and 4–8 surveyed ground control points across a typical 5–20 hectare civil site. Without control points, expect metres, not centimetres.
- PPK and RTK solve different problems. RTK gives immediate results but depends on a live correction link; PPK removes the range limit and the link dependency, at the cost of processing before you see anything.
- Deliverable format decides whether the result is usable. Agree LAS/LAZ, XYZ, LandXML or DXF with the engineer of record before the flight, not after the model is built.
- Expect a hybrid sensor plan rather than a single one: photogrammetry for open ground and context, LiDAR where vegetation or equipment hides the surface you need to measure.
Ranges collected 9 October 2026 from published survey practice and vendor guidance. Accuracy is site-specific; treat any figure without control-point count, altitude and overlap as incomplete.
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