Drone News & Articles

The PowerEye Payload is a high-end 4K professional camera system with a mount that can carry up to 2 kg of payload. Attachments include a normal camera, a thermo-camera for night vision, and a gimbal or ‘hook’ to mount and carry up to 2kgs, with remote release.

PowerVision Technology Group Press Release

PowerVision Launches PowerEye Payload Drone

Professional cinematography drone, now with extra payload

• Adds carrying capabilities to creative options, including Dual View for simultaneous video streams and thermal imaging
• Open SDK to create customized applications

Helsinki, Finland –  November 8, 2017 – PowerVision Technology Group a specialist innovator in UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles), robotics and big data technologies, has extended PowerEye, its professional cinematography drone range. The open-source designed drone now combines its standard high-end 4K camera with a mount that can carry up to 2 kg of payload: the PowerEye Payload.

Directly responding to customer requests, PowerEye Payload is a high end professional camera system mounted on a robust, flexible flight platform (drone). Where PowerEye set a new standard for video quality and control, special effects and professional cinematography capabilities, the PowerEye Payload delivers additional flexibility. Attachments include a normal camera, a thermo-camera for night vision, and a gimbal or ‘hook’ to mount and carry up to 2kgs, with remote release.

While all allow the drone to support more tasks whilst still maintaining high cost efficiency, flight stability remains uncompromised by weights of up to 2kg of mounted item.  The one-click release button enables precisely located targets to land and release the load.

“PowerEye already takes professional focus, special effects, and control to the next level. It surpasses what the eye can see to capture something magical.” said Wally Zheng, CEO of PowerVision Technology Group. “The PowerEye Payload opens the drone up to a whole new range of uses.”

Cameras

PowerEye Payload adds to the existing two PowerEye models, the core PowerEye Professional, equipped with a high-performance 4K UHD camera, and a state-of-the-art thermal/natural light switchable camera.  HD video can be transmitted up to 5km.

All three PowerEye versions incorporate Dual Viewing technology, allowing user{s} to see video simultaneously from a First-Person View (FPV) and a Subject Matter View (SMV).  The cinematographer can see ahead of the PowerEye while  in flight through a dedicated FPV camera housed in the nose of the aircraft, whilst a separate gimbal-mounted camera can be simultaneously directed towards action elsewhere (on the ground or elsewhere the sky.)

Do you work in an industry that can benefit from using drones?

The use of drones for commercial applications is on the rise around the world and here in Australia. Drones are currently being used for aerial photography, inspection work and surveying in a variety of industries, with the number of businesses realising their potential growing every day.

What industries can benefit from using drones?

The number of industries using drones is growing exponentially, with agriculture and construction predicted to join their ranks in a big way very soon. Business sectors currently employing drones include:

- Emergency services. Police departments are increasingly using drones as cost-effective aerial surveillance tools.

- Forestry. Tree farmers and forestry departments use drones to record forest activity including species regeneration, survival counts, weed mapping and post-fire analysis.

- Insurance. Loss adjusters are increasingly using drones as a fast cost-effective way to assess and quantify damage after natural disasters such as floods, cyclones and bushfires.

- Telcos. Communications providers are using drones to inspect infrastructure in inaccessible areas to determine repair and maintenance requirements.

- Media. Journalists and filmmakers are using drones to provide aerial footage not obtainable any other way.

- Mining. Mineral exploration companies are using drones to conduct aerial surveys of potential mineral deposits.

- Real estate. Real estate agents and vendors are using drones to give potential buyers aerial views of properties and neighbourhoods to give them a better idea of their location in terms of proximity to shops, schools, public transport and arterial links.

Industries tipped to start using drones in a big way very soon include:

- Agriculture. Farming investment in drones is currently small, but as more begin to see their potential to revolutionise agricultural practices, adoption of drone technology is expected to rise rapidly and embrace new applications such as aerial spraying, stock control, soil and field analysis and crop monitoring and protection.

- Construction. Surveyors and civil engineers are beginning to take drone use very seriously, using it more and more for asset inspection work on properties, roofs, chimneys, power lines, pipelines, railways, bridges and anywhere normal access is restricted, time consuming and dangerous.

Insurance requirements

As the use of drones escalates, legislators are struggling to keep up, with Australia being one of the first places to put regulations in place regarding drone operation.

Drones used for commercial purposes in Australia must be piloted by a licensed operator who is subject to a range of rules and regulations aimed at protecting public safety and privacy.

Drones, also known as remote piloted aircraft or RPAs, have become increasingly popular in recent years, both recreationally as well as commercially. They are used in many industries including the commercial real estate market. Drones have many applications, not least of which is producing marketing material to attract potential property buyers. Commercial property owners or managers may also find that a drone will simplify their property inspections.

Benefits to potential buyers

When purchasing undeveloped land, it helps to have a good look at the terrain so as to check for features which may affect the proposed development. Drones can cover greater areas than a survey, clearly showing nearby features, hard to access places such as streams or culverts, besides giving the potential buyer an overview of the surrounding land, adjacent structures or access routes. 

The mapping software designed for drone technology can be used to calculate lengths, heights, areas or volumes without resorting to expensive ground surveys. Features which would otherwise be obscured by vegetation, including anomalies in the terrain, may be revealed by means of a drone equipped with a suitable camera. Depending on the property, this could only take an hour or so; far less time than a full ground survey, besides being more cost effective.

Benefits to sellers

In the past, property owners used aerial photography or video in order to display their properties with impact, although this has proven to be expensive. By using a drone, a property may be videoed from every angle, allowing owners to showcase their commercial listings in an impressive manner. Drones can offer a potential investor perspectives from a development not yet built, such as the view from the 10th floor of an upcoming office block.  

Real estate advertisements show photographs of the interior and exterior of a building, but with the use of a drone they may show a fluid video of the interior and exterior, the full scope of an atrium for example, not to mention the immediate environment, property boundaries, access routes or other important features. The technology is such that high resolution videos or photos are of superb clarity and accuracy.

Commercial property managers also benefit

The use of drones for the purpose of maintenance inspections, in particular roofs or high-rise buildings, will prove invaluable. Such an inspection can be a dangerous task, however, an autonomous drone may be programmed to record every nook and cranny requiring regular checking. Programming the same flight path for regular inspections will allow the manager to assess levels of deterioration, providing clear photographic evidence of the condition of the asset. Regular inspections can also record changes in the condition of the property, alerting the owner to possible latent problems which may then be dealt with before they constitute a major crisis.

Regular inspections using a thermal camera will show which areas of a building may be losing or gathering heat in the course of a day, potentially due to inadequate insulation. This allows the owner to install preventative measures to reduce the need for excess heating or cooling of the property.

Drones can work any hour of the day or night, practically irrespective of weather conditions. They are proving effective for security patrols over large commercial or industrial properties, securing the safety of the business as well as the staff.

Regulations

Regulations regarding the use of drones must be adhered to, which could complicate their use by private individuals or commercial entities. However, if you employ a reputable firm which is properly registered and fully aware of the legal implications, you should not experience a problem. Costs are reducing as drones become more popular, besides being more readily available for commercial purposes.

Telstra has put drones into use across Tasmania to assist with asset inspections and site assessments, in the hope they will improve safety for workers and reduce network downtime.

The telco has been trialling the use of drones for these purposes in Queensland and New South Wales for the last year. Telstra has 9000 mobile network sites around Australia covering 2.4 million square kilometres. 

It is now putting the machines into official use in Tasmania, where one of its technicians has completed training to become a CASA-certified Telstra drone pilot technician.

"Drones will now be used in Tasmania to better assess the suitability of new sites for infrastructure, improve safety for local employees and improve repair times in the event of extreme weather or natural disasters," Telstra said in a blog post.

"Previously technicians had to climb towers or bring in cherry pickers which takes time, particularly in regional areas where land may be uneven or muddy.

"Drones now mean this work can be done more safely and easily and, in the event new parts and equipment need to be ordered, this can be done immediately from the ground."

Drones will also allow Telstra to respond faster in the aftermath of disasters that impact its infrastructure; the devices were used to inspect mobile base stations for damage in Wye River in Victoria in the late 2015 bushfires.

Flying a drone in confined locations isn’t an easy task. It requires piloting skills, and previous knowledge of the surroundings. But what happens if you need to fly a drone where there is no GPS, no light, and humans can’t go? A new drone certification program from Flyability will help provide Elios drone owners with a way to assess their piloting skills in these kinds of situations, but that’s just the first step for organizations looking to adopt the technology.

The Canada-based company, Unmanned Aerial Services Inc. (UAS Inc.), is working on solutions for performing underground inspections, in a GPS denied environment, and they’re using Flyability’s Elios drone. Last month, UAS Inc. founders, Matt MacKinnon and Jason Carignan, performed multiple missions in the North American Palladium (NAP) Lac des Iles mine near Thunder Bay, Ontario. The NAP is one of only two pure palladium producers in the world, and its extensive operation in the Lac des Iles mine requires frequent inspections to monitor ground conditions and ensure both the safety and productivity of their workers.

Underground mines are dangerous places, especially after mining and excavation which result in open caverns, called open stopes. To prevent caving in the surrounding area and ensure the safety and continuity in the mine, the material removed from these open stopes must be replaced – a process known as “backfilling”.

However, before replacing the material, NAP performs an inspection/survey to determine the condition of the area, and calculate how much backfill material is required to fill the void and ensure the surrounding ground is stable. During the inspection, it’s also important to evaluate the height and condition of a stope ceiling (known as the back) to know what it looks like after blasting, in order to prevent future problems on other levels of the mine, which could potentially threaten lives and production.

Traditional surveying tools for this kind of operation include: a Cavity Monitoring Survey (CMS) on a cart or boom arm, which is ineffective at getting through the tall piles of muck on the floor, in going around corner, or seeing beyond a deep brow; or a borehole camera which is lowered into the stope through an existing drill hole, which can also be ineffective at completely inspecting the area due to being limited to the actual location of the hole and where it exits into the stope from above. This is where UAS Inc. comes in.

With the help of the Elios drone, equipped with both a 1080p HD video camera as well as an embedded thermal camera, and by standing safely under supported ground – well away from the restricted area – the team was able to to gather accurate information about the ground conditions, geological features, and dikes (fault lines) that may indicate where walls are likely to fall. With the collected data, the company can use AutoCad to create a rough model of the stope, used to evaluate risks and plan work.

In contrast to a full day with the traditional surveying tools, Elios performed the mission in 1 hour, and were also able to remove the human element from this hostile and dangerous environment.

According to an August study by Esticast Research & Consulting Market Research, the global commercial drone market may reach $3.6 billion by 2024. However, a new study forecasts an even larger bumper crop for just one of the many sub-sectors — agriculture.

The study, released this week by MarketInsightsReports, predicts the ag drone market will exceed the entire drone market value referenced in the Esticast report and do so two years earlier.

The report foresees a $4.2 billion value for the agricultural drone market by 2022 — representing a growth rate of 30 percent and beating Esticast’s overall prediction for the whole drone market by $600 million.

Although the marketing report is rather coy with the details – only offering a few tidbits in order to sell a $4,000 full report – it nevertheless touches on some of the key drone players in the growing ag sector such as PrecisionHawk, AeroVironment, Agribotix, AgEagle and DroneDeploy.

For these major players, the precision agriculture sector has already yielded a bountiful harvest of revenue. For example, DroneDeploy, a commercial drone cloud software platform, released Fieldscanner in April. The solution provides real-time drone mapping for farmers, “enabling real-time, offline mapping for immediate in-field analysis.”

The most recent report appears to jibe with earlier research. In January, Zion Research released a similar report covering areas such as fixed and rotary drones as well as data management, imaging software and data analysis. Zion’s report pegs the precision agriculture drone market at $2.9 billion by 2021 – up 28 percent from a 2015 valuation of $673 million

“Drones help farmers take better care of their crops and have a higher yield from the farm,” the report states. “Increasing automation in the agriculture process — owing to the labor crisis such as a lack of skilled farmers and aging farmers — is also expected to have a positive impact on the agriculture drone market growth.”

Over the past few years we have witnessed how technological developments have changed our habits and improved a range of processes, making them more agile, accurate and fast.

Among these cutting edge technologies, there is a strong consensus on the transformative power of drones – small, unmanned flying vehicles that can be controlled remotely for many different purposes.

Their applications appear to be infinite and are growing all the time, particularly in carrying out many processes involved in the complex day-to-day operations of airports around the world.

However, it is important to embrace drone-assisted processes not because they’re innovative, but because they lead to more efficient operations and add tangible value to airports where they are implemented.

Based upon such an approach, a multidisciplinary innovation team consisting of Ferrovial, Ferrovial Airports, Southampton Airport and AmeyVTOL (a joint venture between VTOL Technologies and Amey), has  collaborated, carrying out a proof of concept to use drones for the airport’s asset management tasks.

The trial was carried out at Southampton Airport. The objective of the trial was to prove that drones could be used “Within Visual Line Of Sight” (WVLOS) to replace or complement manual inspection activities, as a first step towards a more commercially viable autonomous use of  unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in the near future.

The drone deployed for this project was a Skyjib 8 HL Quadcopter, which addressed the following activities:

Pavement inspections (stands, taxiways and runway)

Perimeter fence Inspections

Building inspections

Image of the runway taken from 20 meters elevation

Image of the runway taken from 5 metres elevation

During a 5-hour test run, the drone was able to shoot both HD video and capture more than 900 high-definition images at 5, 10 and 20-metre heights above ground level. Both formats produced images in which defects such as small cracks in the runway surface could be detected to a level of accuracy greater than that capable with the naked eye.

The technical feasibility of using drones for these activities was fully proved, as it could lead to the following qualitative benefits:

- More consistent data capture in imagery applications

- More repeatable and accurate data to compare changes between inspections

- A higher resolution of data coverage

- A reduced safety risk to the workforce, especially for building inspections

Time savings

Together with the technical feasibility study, the project team calculated the costs and savings of each activity to determine the economic viability of each business case. The conclusions were that the higher financial benefits were achieved with Level 3 pavement inspections and with building inspections that otherwise would have required costly scaffolding.

Dave Lees, Managing Director of Southampton Airport, said: “Southampton Airport constantly evaluates emerging new technologies, and the trial utilising drone technology has highlighted a potential breakthrough methodology to enhance both the efficiency and effectiveness of some of the airport’s operational activities.”

Air pollutants known as particulate matter are a complex mixture of microscopic solids and liquid droplets with some particles—such as dust, dirt, soot or smoke—large enough or dark enough to be seen with the naked eye. Other particulates are so small they can only be detected using an electron microscope. Now researchers are expanding their ability to study even the smallest particulates using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to carry such instruments into the sky and analyze what is in the air we breathe.

Once inhaled, particulate matter can damage the lungs and heart and cause serious health effects, “even cancer,” said Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and bioengineering at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ozcan’s lab has long worked on imaging techniques for environmental applications. Their research yielded novel lens-less microscopes, where samples are directly placed over imaging chips with no optical components between them for compact, high-throughput and cost-effective imaging, Ozcan said.

Current monitoring techniques for aerosols of this particulate matter “are either bulky or low-throughput,” Ozcan said. For instance, air sampling stations typically use beta-attenuation monitoring or tapered element oscillating microbalance instruments that usually weigh roughly 30 kilograms, cost about $50,000 to $100,000, and require specialized personnel or technicians for regular system maintenance every few weeks. Although commercially available, portable particle counters only cost roughly $2,000 to $8,000, they sample the air at rates of less than 2 to 3 liters per minute, and accurate measurements of either very-high or very-low concentrations of particles is challenging for these devices. Moreover, neither of these options provides microscopic images of captured particulate matter for detailed analysis, Ozcan added.

“We thought this very light-weight and versatile microscope platform would be a good fit as a payload for a drone to perform three-dimensional air quality monitoring—to see the particles in air that people do not normally see with their bare eyes,” Ozcan said.

Airborne Microscopes

In the beginning, Ozcan said, he and his lab had no experience with drones.

“A major effort of ours for this application with drones was to reduce the weight of the device so we can fit it into a smaller, more portable and cheaper drone,” he told Inside Unmanned Systems.

Their efforts have resulted in a mobile imaging system they call c-Air. “So far the c-Air device weighs about 600 grams,” Ozcan said.

The device can screen 13 liters of air per minute and generates microscopic images of scanned particulate matter, providing statistics of particle size and density distribution with a sizing accuracy of roughly 93 percent. They also integrated the device with a smartphone application to control c-Air and display results.

The device relies on cloud computing to remotely, rapidly and accurately analyze acquired images of particulate matter. Artificial-intelligence machine-learning algorithms can be used, said Ozcan and his colleagues, to adaptively tailor c-Air to identify specific particles in the air, such as various types of pollen and mold. It won the Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project prize in 2016.

The device uses a pump to drive air into a nozzle, inside which particulate matter can latch onto a sticky coverslip. Red, green and blue LEDs then illuminate this coverslip so a color CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) image sensor—the same kind used in most digital cameras—can take pictures of the particles from a distance of just 400 microns, a span about four times the average width of a human hair.

Florida-based VolAero CEO Charles Zwebner is in the drone business. It's a technology that has been on the rise for two to three years, Zwebner says. It's also a technology that companies like Amazon and Google have been investing in and touting. And now it's a technology being used more and more in real estate.

VolAero is a drone video, imagery and data processing company.

Zwebner told Albuquerque Business First he sees real estate professionals – over other industries – are taking advantage of the tech. He said the biggest challenge of increasing the drone popularity across industries is not the technology but humans' willingness to adapt and learn about the machinery.

He works with architects, developers, brokers and contractors to produce video for each stage of a property's creation. He noted work will range from mapping and surveying to marketing and construction management.

"It doesn't matter if it's an agent selling a small house or a hotel needing marketing," he said on those who are using drones.

Zwebner said that whereas photos and video once sufficed, there is higher demand for 360 degree, aerial video. And in a world where there is a high volume of information and listings, drone footage is being used to set the property apart.

"We are seeing this a lot [of drone usage], everyone is competing out there and standard imagery just ain't cutting it today," he said.

While he has noticed popularity in bigger markets like California and Florida, New Mexico has conditions needed for drones to take flight including clear weather and sunny days. Zwebner says the technology is also on the rise in smaller markets as well.

Albuquerque has its fair share of local companies using the tech for the real estate scene. Titan Development previously told ABF it used drones to fly over construction sites, make marketing videos of its properties and give project updates to its investors on a monthly basis. And other local companies have launched to build on the hype.

Major industrial companies are moving into robotic inspection services, combining their knowledge of infrastructure maintenance with drones, robots and artificial intelligence (AI) for automating the collection and analysis of data.

Honeywell has launched a commercial inspection service using Intel’s Falcon 8+ industrial drone and targeted at the utility, energy, infrastructure, and oil and gas industries. The Honeywell InView package includes the drone, pilot app and a web portal to help customers create standardized routines and crisis-response inspections, as well as providing data analytics.

A General Electric startup is taking AI into the field to automate and optimize inspection of industrial assets by drones and robots. Avitas Systems, launched by GE in June, has partnered with computing specialist Nvidia to develop AI for robotic inspection and data analytics.

Replacing time-based manual inspections of assets such as transmission towers and flare stacks with automated checks based on assessing the risk of defects developing is expected to save customers time and money as well as being safer, says Alex Tepper, cofounder of Avitas Systems.

Boeing subsidiary Insitu launched Inexa Solutions in May to offer commercial aerial remote-sensing services for markets including linear infrastructure inspection—surveying pipelines, power lines and railway tracks. Lockheed Martin is also targeting the linear infrastructure market, while Airbus Aerial was formed in May to bring together commercial satellite and airborne remote-sensing capabilities.

A startup formed by GE Ventures—which creates, incubates and launches new businesses within GE—Avitas Systems is offering inspection services to the oil and gas, energy and transportation industries. It uses drones, crawler robots and autonomous undersea vehicles to automate inspections.

Avitas Systems is using Nvidia’s DGX computing systems to run the AI algorithms it is developing for use in planning the inspection paths, processing the images collected, and for the data analytics involved in automatically detecting defects such as corrosion, hot or cold spots or microfractures.

Nvidia’s DGX-1 supercomputing workstation is being used centrally for coding and training deep learning algorithms, such as convolutional neural networks for image classification and general adversarial neural networks for labeling captured images.

Additionally, Avitas Systems plans to deploy Nvdia’s compact DGX Station supercomputing system locally with the robots to help recognize defects automatically at inspection sites. “We are passionate about doing AI not just in the data center, but pushing it to the edge,” says Tepper.

“Our long-term vision is for the robots to incorporate AI, so they change their behavior on the basis of what they are seeing,” he says. “We are not there yet, but we are pushing AI from the data center to the field.”

Unveiled in May, DGX Station was designed as a deskside AI supercomputer, but Avitas saw the potential to deploy the system in vans, says Jim McHugh, Nvidia vice president and general manager: “We shared our prototype with Avitas and they will soon get the full production unit.” Based on Nvidia’s second-generation Volta architecture, this has three times the performance, he says.

Avitas Systems is using AI to plan flightpaths for drones that optimize the collection of data at points of interest on assets such as pipelines and refineries. AI is then used to layer the images collected on a 3D model of the asset and to perform automatic defect recognition.