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WiBotic – a Seattle-based firm that makes a speciality of superior charging and energy optimization methods for the quickly increasing ecosystem of aerial, cellular, house and industrial robots – launched PowerPad Professional, a stand-alone platform that may additionally seamlessly combine into any current hangar or different UAV storage facility. PowerPad Professional routinely prices drones with out bodily connection factors, whereas wirelessly transferring flight information, photographs and video.
WiBotic’s new PowerPad Professional with a drone. | Supply: WiBotic
“PowerPad Professional enhances drone performance for our companions working in environments the place autonomous or semi-autonomous operations are a precedence,” Ben Waters, co-founder and CEO of WiBotic, stated. “We designed it as a versatile resolution for many who both already personal and function drones – and have their very own infrastructure in place – or those that are in search of a cheaper possibility for totally autonomous operations. PowerPad Professional can be utilized as a stand-alone touchdown platform, or it may be built-in into any variety of enclosures and type elements comparable to trailers, sheds, and even truck beds.”
One in every of WiBotic’s first companions for PowerPad Professional is Valmont Industries Inc., a worldwide chief that gives important infrastructure and advances agricultural productiveness whereas driving innovation via expertise.
“Valmont has been working intently with WiBotic and different companions to reinforce our drone inspection capabilities,” Angi Chamberlain, VP of UAS Expertise Options at Valmont, stated. “For the primary time, PowerPad Professional supplies a charging platform that works with any of the completely different UAVs we use. Distant flight plan uploads and automatic sensor information downloads additionally enable us to carry out inspections on a second’s discover at any location the place the platform is deployed.”
Wi-fi Knowledge Switch
Throughout battery charging, PowerPad Professional’s wi-fi information switch allows UAVs to rapidly and simply obtain flight and sensor information to an industrial laptop contained in the pad. The information can then be processed domestically and/or routinely transmitted to a central location utilizing LTE or long-range information backhaul radios.
Utilizing the identical wi-fi information hyperlink, distant operators can add flight plans or monitor flights in actual time, making certain protected and managed flights. With out this functionality, high-resolution photographs, video and different information can rapidly fill the UAV’s onboard storage. By eradicating this restriction, PowerPad Professional supplies extra flexibility and flexibility within the missions that UAVs can carry out.
Autonomous Charging
Along with wi-fi information switch, PowerPad Professional additionally routinely begins wi-fi battery charging upon touchdown. This eliminates the necessity for cables and connectors and permits completely different sizes and forms of UAVs to share a standard touchdown pad platform (or sequence of platforms) deployed throughout massive areas.
In contrast to contact-based charging stations, WiBotic’s patented expertise supplies energy via the air. The pad is totally sealed to the weather, defending each electronics and mechanical elements from mud, particles, rain, bugs and different environmental elements that will ultimately influence reliability. Programmable voltage and present additionally assist lengthen battery lifespan, decreasing the necessity for expensive battery replacements and upkeep.
Trade Advantages
By providing these twin advantages – wi-fi information switch coupled with autonomous charging – PowerPad Professional dramatically enhances drone operations throughout a variety of industries:
- Vitality & Utilities: Utility operators want information from infrastructure inspection every single day – not a couple of times a 12 months. Completely deployed UAVs with the flexibility to fly a number of repetitive missions, utilizing one PowerPad Professional or a sequence of them over lengthy distances, are important for decreasing inspection prices whereas rising inspection frequency.
- Building: Remotely monitoring development websites supplies innumerable advantages by way of security, construct high quality and proprietor/builder/subcontractor relations. Nonetheless, most development information is extraordinarily excessive bandwidth and getting it to engineers and venture managers at distant areas is extraordinarily tough with out a resolution like PowerPad Professional.
- Protection: Drones are continuously geared up with high-resolution cameras, infrared sensors and different superior imaging gear that collect terabytes of knowledge. In a fight zone, nonetheless, it’s extraordinarily harmful to depart a protected automobile to swap batteries or retrieve the SD playing cards that comprise that information. A totally autonomous platform like PowerPad Professional ensures the warfighter stays protected whereas she or he gathers intelligence on enemy actions.
- Agriculture: UAVs have made monitoring 1000’s of acres of farmland simpler than ever earlier than – however that’s to not say it’s straightforward. Drones nonetheless have restricted flight time and restricted onboard information storage. A community of strategically positioned PowerPad Professionals solves this downside by offering charging stations throughout the complete farm and an automated backhaul of knowledge to the farm HQ the place it may be put to instant use.
Whereas these onboard chargers will be built-in into practically any UAV, Wibotic is happy to announce BlueHalo as the primary companion for PowerPad Professional. The BlueHalo Intense Eye V2 (IE-V2) and E900 fashions can now be bought with WiBotic’s PowerPad Professional to assist each charging and information offload.
“BlueHalo supplies UAVs to each the business and protection sectors, with in depth expertise in functions starting from inspection and monitoring to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions,” Mary Clum, Sector President and Company Government Vice President of BlueHalo, stated. “There’s a rising demand for completely deployed and remotely managed UAVs. PowerPad Professional has given us a single, dependable software to combine autonomous charging and information offload capabilities into our UAV platforms, permitting us to supply new options and higher assist important buyer missions.”