Somerset Community College is using a drone to help map a local cemetery. Professor Eric Wooldridge is helping the Pulaski County Historical Society take aerial images of Short Creek Cemetery. He's using an 18-inch drone, also called an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV.
“Our primary objective with the UAV will be to fly it over top, sort of center it into quadrants, and take a good quality picture looking straight down,” said Wooldridge.
The idea is to preserve headstone locations and other historical information that could be worn away by weather and time.
“You’re dealing with markers and stones that are made of sandstone and deteriorating, so there’s no real way to keep that information unless it’s recorded in some type of legitimate format,” said Wooldridge.
The drone will fly 20-to-40 feet over the cemetery and take images that will be used to map the property. The data recorded by the drone will be compared with notes about each headstone taken by a historical society volunteer.