Hello, I fly a DJI Mavic Air 2 for my company for marketing purposes. My company focuses on Civil and Environment Engineering and the drone is often used to take pictures and videos of projects at different phases of construction all the way until completion.
Recently I got asked an interesting question; Is there a drone software out there, that I can use, that will let me load a CAD alignment into the program which my drone can then follow. To elaborate, we are laying down a new water pipeline and it would be great if I could load the alignment of the pipeline into a drone program which the drone could then just follow. That way we can get a better idea of what obstacles (trees, rocks, etc.) that may lie within the path of the pipeline as opposed to just relying on a survey. Even better if I could then somehow show the path of the alignment as almost an overlay in the drone's video.

Thanks in advance!

Take a look at Drone Deploy or Litch both can follow waypoints but you'd need to find a way to export from you cad program into a KML file typically.

Hi MrSkeeZe
I am trying to do the same thing but here is how I went about it: I used a software called FME to convert the CAD plans into a SHP file (a shapefile with polygons NOT polylines or lines). So now instead of a plan (dimentional drawing or 3D or what have you) you will have a JSON which is a Java object but with your plans in AutoCAD. Make a table with all your objects (roads in one table trees in the other just like you would in your CAD plans to have a comprehensive LEGEND). VERY IMPORTANT! FME can make those tables for you, you just have to use the right transformer.
then, you need to georeference those shp files (it helps to have all your objects or plans on a table ) again FME does this automatically. After this you will need whatever SRC you used lets say the WGM89/UTM or an EPSG:25832 to be turned into the WGM89 transverse marcator which google maps and bing works with.
Make a KML.
Get it to your phone. Open it from there with TOPO Maps or TISLER or another app that you can anotate with and then choose which of these areas are fly zones and which are no flying zones or fly with different settings zone (speed,altitude, drone yaw possition, etc). Afterwards just open the KML with DJI fly or whatever set your settings there and press play.
I suggest Flying with Drone Harmony which has these options built in. I had been through this whole ordeal because Drone Harmony doesn't work good with bad reception.

Should you like FME you can make your own transformation and do all the above things with a mouse click. Make a trial account and don't look at their pricing

I hope I helped!