The MIT team tested its collision avoidance system in a flight environment with six drones and in simulation. | Source: MIT

A research team from MIT created a trajectory-planning system called Robust MADER that can allow drones working together in the same airspace to pick safe paths forward without crashing into each other. The algorithm is an updated version of MADER, a 2020 project that worked well in simulation but didn’t hold up in real-world testing. 

The original MADER system involved each agent broadcasting its trajectory so fellow drones know where it’s planning to go. In simulation, this worked without problems, with all drones considering each other’s trajectories when planning their own. When put to the test, the team found that it didn’t take into account delays in communication between drones, resulting in unexpected collisions. 

“MADER worked great in simulations, but it hadn’t been tested in hardware. So, we built a bunch of drones and started flying them. The drones need to talk to each other to share trajectories, but once you start flying, you realize pretty quickly that there are always communication delays that introduce some failures,” Kota Kondo, an aeronautics and astronautics graduate student, said.

Robust MADER is able to generate collision-free trajectories for drones even when there is a delay in communications between agents. The system is an asynchronous, decentralized, multiagent trajectory planner, meaning each drone formulates its own trajectory and then checks with drones nearby to ensure it won’t run into any of them. 

The drones optimize their new trajectories using an algorithm that incorporates the trajectories they received from nearby drones, and agents constantly optimize and broadcast new trajectories to avoid collisions. 

To get around any delays in sharing trajectories, every drone has a delay-check period, where it spends a fixed amount of time repeatedly checking for communications from other agents to see if its new trajectory is safe. If it finds a possible collision, it abandons the new trajectory and keeps going on its current one. The length of this delay-check period depends on the distance between agents and other environmental factors that could hamper communications. 

While the system does require all drones to agree on each new trajectory, they don’t all have to agree at the same time, making it a scalable system. It could be used in any situation where multiple drones are working together in the same airspace like spraying pesticides over crops. 

The MIT team ran hundreds of simulations in which they artificially introduced communication delays, and found that MADER was 100% successful at avoiding collisions. When tested with six drones and two aerial obstacles in a flight environment, Robust MADER was able to avoid all collisions, while the old algorithm would have caused seven collisions. 

Moving forward, the research team hopes to put Robust MADER to the test outdoors, where obstacles can affect communications. They also hope to outfit drones with visual sensors so they can detect other agents or obstacles, predict their movements and include that information in trajectory optimizations. 

Kota Konda wrote the paper with Jesus Tordesillas, a postdoc; Parker C. Lusk, a graduate student; Reinaldo Figueroa, Juan Rached, and Joseph Merkel, MIT undergraduates; and senior author Jonathan P. How, the Richard C. Maclaurin Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a principal investigator in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), and a member of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. This work was supported by Boeing Research and Technology.

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MIT engineers developed a method to tailor any wireless network to handle a high load of time-sensitive data coming from multiple sources. | Credit: Christine Daniloff, MIT

How fresh are your data? For drones searching a disaster zone or robots inspecting a building, working with the freshest data is key to locating a survivor or reporting a potential hazard. But when multiple robots simultaneously relay time-sensitive information over a wireless network, a traffic jam of data can ensue. Any information that gets through is too stale to consider as a useful, real-time report.

Now, MIT engineers may have a solution. They’ve developed a method to tailor any wireless network to handle a high load of time-sensitive data coming from multiple sources. Their new approach, called WiSwarm, configures a wireless network to control the flow of information from multiple sources while ensuring the network is relaying the freshest data.

The team used their method to tweak a conventional Wi-Fi router, and showed that the tailored network could act like an efficient traffic cop, able to prioritize and relay the freshest data to keep multiple vehicle-tracking drones on task.

The team’s method, which they will present in May at IEEE’s International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), offers a practical way for multiple robots to communicate over available Wi-Fi networks so they don’t have to carry bulky and expensive communications and processing hardware onboard.

Last in line

The team’s approach departs from the typical way in which robots are designed to communicate data.

“What happens in most standard networking protocols is an approach of first come, first served,” said MIT author Vishrant Tripathi. “A video frame comes in, you process it. Another comes in, you process it. But if your task is time-sensitive, such as trying to detect where a moving object is, then all the old video frames are useless. What you want is the newest video frame.”

In theory, an alternative approach of “last in, first out” could help keep data fresh. The concept is similar to a chef putting out entreés one by one as they are hot off the line. If you want the freshest plate, you’d want the last one that joined the queue. The same goes for data, if what you care about is the “age of information,” or the most up-to-date data.

“Age-of-information is a new metric for information freshness that considers latency from the perspective of the application,” said Eytan Modiano of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS). “For example, the freshness of information is important for an autonomous vehicle that relies on various sensor inputs. A sensor that measures the proximity to obstacles in order to avoid collision requires fresher information than a sensor measuring fuel levels.”

The team looked to prioritize age-of information, by incorporating a “last in, first out” protocol for multiple robots working together on time-sensitive tasks. They aimed to do so over conventional wireless networks, as Wi-Fi is pervasive and doesn’t require bulky onboard communication hardware to access.

However, wireless networks come with a big drawback: They are distributed in nature and do not prioritize receiving data from any one source. A wireless channel can then quickly clog up when multiple sources simultaneously send data. Even with a “last in, first out” protocol, data collisions would occur. In a time-sensitive exercise, the system would break down.

Data priority

As a solution, the team developed WiSwarm — a scheduling algorithm that can be run on a centralized computer and paired with any wireless network to manage multiple data streams and prioritize the freshest data.

Rather than attempting to take in every data packet from every source at every moment in time, the algorithm determines which source in a network should send data next. That source (a drone or robot) would then observe a “last in, first out” protocol to send their freshest piece of data through the wireless network to a central processor.

The algorithm determines which source should relay data next by assessing three parameters: a drone’s general weight, or priority (for instance, a drone that is tracking a fast vehicle might have to update more frequently, and therefore would have higher priority over a drone tracking a slower vehicle); a drone’s age of information, or how long it’s been since a drone has sent an update; and a drone’s channel reliability, or likelihood of successfully transmitting data.

By multiplying these three parameters for each drone at any given time, the algorithm can schedule drones to report updates through a wireless network one at a time, without clogging the system, and in a way that provides the freshest data for successfully carrying out a time-sensitive task.

The team tested out their algorithm with multiple mobility-tracking drones. They outfitted flying drones with a small camera and a basic Wi-Fi-enabled computer chip, which it used to continuously relay images to a central computer rather than using a bulky, onboard computing system. They programmed the drones to fly over and follow small vehicles moving randomly on the ground.

When the team paired the network with its algorithm, the computer was able to receive the freshest images from the most relevant drones, which it used to then send commands back to the drones to keep them on the vehicle’s track.

When the researchers ran experiments with two drones, the method was able to relay data that was two times fresher, which resulted in six times better tracking, compared to when the two drones carried out the same experiment with Wi-Fi alone. When they expanded the system to five drones and five ground vehicles, Wi-Fi alone could not accommodate the heavier data traffic, and the drones quickly lost track of the ground vehicles. With WiSwarm, the network was better equipped and enabled all drones to keep tracking their respective vehicles.

“Ours is the first work to show that age-of-information can work for real robotics applications,” said MIT author Ezra Tal.

In the near future, cheap and nimble drones could work together and communicate over wireless networks to accomplish tasks such as inspecting buildings, agricultural fields, and wind and solar farms. Farther in the future, he sees the approach being essential for managing data streaming throughout smart cities.

“Imagine self-driving cars come to an intersection that has a sensor that sees something around the corner,” said MIT’s Sertac Karaman. “Which car should get that data first? It’s a problem where timing and freshness of data matters.”

Editor’s Note: This article was republished from MIT News.

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Iron Drone offers a counter-drone intercepting system that can eliminate small drones without using GPS or RF jamming. | Source: Ondas Holdings

Airobotics, a subsidiary of Ondas Holdings, announced that it has completed the acquisition of the assets of Iron Drone Ltd, an Israeli-based company that creates autonomous counter-drone systems. The acquisition became effective on March 6, 2023. 

Iron Drone offers a fully-automated drone intercepting system that can eliminate small drones without using GPS or RF jamming. Based on initial radar guidance, the company’s interceptor drone is launched from a designated pod and autonomously flies toward its targets. The drone then locks onto the target with advanced AI vision, follows the target, incapacitates and captures it using a net and a parachute before it safely lowers it to the ground. 

“Iron Drone’s counter-drone technology is a perfect fit for Ondas’ portfolio as it is a mission-critical system that can be installed to protect sensitive assets,” Eric Brock, Chairman and CEO of Ondas, said in a release. “The combination of Airobotics with Iron Drone represents a new revenue opportunity for Ondas in a market that is seeing a lot of growth. Iron Drone’s expertise and technology will be complementary to the Optimus System drone, providing our growing list of customers in the public safety and industrial sectors with the solution they are looking for.”

Iron Drone is Ondas’ first foray into the public safety, homeland security and defense markets. The company’s system and Airobotics’ Optimus System together offer a government-grade drone system for security and critical infrastructure protection and monitoring. 

“We’re moving fast to bring the Iron Drone solution to the homeland security worldwide market,” Meir Kliner, Ondas Autonomous Systems President, said in a release. “We have already been approached by various potential customers who are looking for a reliable, non-weaponized counter-drone solution. The unique integrated AI-based Iron Drone solution relies on [the] physical elimination of the target drone. This makes it effective against pre-programmed hostile drones and UAVs which do not rely on [the] operator’s radio-link. Moreover, due to its low collateral signature, it can be operated in areas where the use of jamming is prohibited, such as airports, populated areas, and critical infrastructures. With Iron Drone, our customers will be able to neutralize threats while utilizing Optimus drones for monitoring, observation, and video surveillance.”

Ondas announced it was acquiring Airobotics in July 2022, with the goal of accelerating American Robotics‘, another Ondas subsidiary, technical development and regulatory roadmap and expanding the breadth of applications, use cases and vertical AR targets. 

Airobotics’ Optimus System is an autonomous unmanned aircraft system that focuses on high-value applications within the industrial, homeland security and smart city services market. The system includes an industrial-grade drone-in-a-box and the Optimus Airbase, which allows for robotic battery and payload swapping. 

The Scout System from American Robotics includes Scout, a fully-autonomous drone, ScoutBase, a weatherproof charging and edge computing station and ScoutView, a fleet management and analytics software. Scout is intended for industrial, agricultural, and defense markets. 

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Skydio announced it has raised $230 million in funding following a year that saw its enterprise customer base exceed 1,200 organizations, just three years after entering the enterprise and public sector market.

Skydio drones are now used by every branch of the U.S. Department of Defense, by over half of all U.S. State Departments of Transportation, by over 200 public safety agencies in 47 states and across more than 60 energy utilities. The company has benefited from negative press related to competitor DJI, and restrictions for use of DJI drones by US government agencies.

Skydio is used by enterprises in over a dozen other industries. These customers are automating complex inspection tasks and getting situational awareness in life-and-death situations. On the strength of its autonomy technology, Skydio is now the largest drone manufacturer in the United States.

The $230 million Series E round brings Skydio’s total funding raised to $562 million with a current valuation of over $2.2 billion. Linse Capital led the round, joined by existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Next47, IVP, DoCoMo, NVIDIA, the Walton Family Foundation and UP.Partners. The company also welcomed new investors Hercules Capital and Axon, a technology leader in global public safety and a key Skydio technology partner.

“Drones enable the core industries that our civilization runs on—transportation, public safety, energy, construction, communications, defense, and more—to operate more safely and more efficiently, by putting sensors wherever they’re needed, whenever they’re needed, while keeping people safely on the ground. The transition to autonomy delivers a step change in the accessibility and utility of drones by removing the need for an expert pilot,” said Adam Bry, co-founder and CEO of Skydio. “We are still in the early innings of the industry, but we are seeing extraordinary demand globally from organizations addressing needs important to every citizen.”

Skydio Dock and Skydio Dock Lite, which are powered by the new Remote Ops software and allow drones to be flown without an operator on site, were recently announced. Skydio also just started offering Regulatory Services, which are helping to break through the Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) barrier by giving customers permission to fly Skydio drones even when they can’t see them, even if they are fully remote. The industry has reached a turning point when both the technology and the rules are ready for fully autonomous operations.

The company has grown by 30 times in the last three years, making it one of the fastest-growing companies in North America, according to the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 awards. The growth is happening in a market that has been dominated in the past by manually flown drones made by Chinese companies that have to follow China’s government policy. Geopolitical tensions that are getting worse have made it even more important to have safe, reliable drones for critical infrastructure, public safety, and defense.

Skydio uses market-leading autonomous flying technology and manufacturing within the US to solve these problems. Skydio added 40% to its staff last year. Skydio also unveiled its 36,000-square-foot Hayward, California production facility, a 10-fold increase in capacity. Skydio aims to add over 150 manufacturing jobs to its Hayward, CA factory and other U.S. locations to meet demand and service its increasing global customer base.

“Skydio drones are being used to save lives and aid in the maintenance of critical infrastructure in ways that sounded like science fiction just a few years ago,” offered Bastiaan Janmat, Managing Director, Linse Capital. “We couldn’t be more excited to continue our partnership with Skydio as they solidify their position as the world’s most innovative drone technology company.”

“Drones bring substantial value in maintaining public safety, in particular in terms of increasing visibility and providing a first line of communications for first responders. Skydio fills a critical need in making that value more readily accessible to key stakeholders such as law enforcement thanks to the power of autonomy,” said Henrik Kuhl, SVP, Strategy & Corporate Development at Axon. “We are excited to continue our go-to-market and technology partnership with Skydio as we work together to deepen adoption of this technology in public safety.”

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US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy addresses the crowd during the opening session of the World Ag Expo 2023. | Credit: The Robot Report

Speaker McCarthy is a native of nearby Bakersfield and Tulare is in the district that he represents. The speaker along with several other senators and representatives from other ag-heavy states were present on day one of the show for an important “listening session” related to the upcoming farm bill which is up for renewal this spring in the US Congress.

Tevel Aerobotics

The new Tevel Alphabot is a partnership between Tevel Aerobotics and S&S Harvesting. | Credit: The Robot Report

Tevel Aerobotics is the 2021 recipient of an RBR50 innovation award for fruit-collecting drones. Tevel’s major announcement at the 2023 World Ag Expo (WAE) is a new relationship with S&S Metal Fabrication to produce an automated platform harvester to support the Tevel drones as they move down a row.

The new S&S mobile base is a derivative of the existing S&S Alpha-1 platform harvester and is about 8 ft wide and 25 ft long. The vehicle features a soft conveyor belt in the middle of the vehicle to gently move the fruit to storage bins that accumulate and deposit the fruit into larger bins. These bins are then dropped off within the rox behind the autonomous vehicle as it progresses down a row within the orchard. 

Many observers of the initial Tevel fruit-picking demo last year pointed out that the drones were dropping the harvested fruit from too high and that it would likely damage the fruit. Tevel has solved this problem through the implementation of a canvas drop zone that catches the fruit deposited by a drone and then lets the fruit fall a short, repeatable distance to the conveyor.

Agtonomy

Agtonomy launched its new Tele-Farmer solution at World Ag Expo 2023. | Credit: The Robot Report

Agtonomy launched its new Tele-farmer solution at the 2023 WAE show. 

This was the biggest robotic agriculture new product announcement at the show. Agtonomy is a startup headquartered in South San Francisco.

The Tele-Farmer solution is positioned as a farm management software solution BUT the company demonstrated a fleet of what they’re describing as reference tractors automated by their Tele-Farmer software solution.

The solution is primarily targeted at high-value crops and orchard workflows like mowing, spraying, and weeding.

Tele-Farmer features two novel capabilities:

• Trunk Vision is an ai-based vision model designed to track the trunks of trees and navigate accurately through an orchard row.
• An autonomous battery changing feature that can autonomously place a dead battery onto the charger and then pick up a fully charged battery from a nearby charging dock.

Nexus Robotics

The Nexus Robotics weeder employs delta-style robot arms to selectively pull weeds out of the ground, while leaving the crop plants untouched. | Credit: The Robot Report

Canadian robotics company NEXUS Robotics attended the show for the first time. The company has a fully autonomous, unmanned, electric drive platform that features three delta-style robots located underneath the robot chassis to pick weeds from plant rows. Each delta robot arm has a single gripper designed to quickly pluck a weed plant from the soil.

The system uses images from a color camera and artificial intelligence to identify the plants from weeds, and then move the robot’s gripper to the location of the weed while the autonomous platform continues to drive along the row.

Nexus is targeting the lettuce market as the initial application for weeding and thinning during cultivation. The solution is delivered as a robot as a service solution. 

The company plans to have its first vehicles in the field this spring for the weeding and cultivation processes during the growing season.

Farmwise

The new Farmwise Vulcan is an autonomous weeder configured as a smart implement that can be attached to any standard tractor. | Credit: The Robot Report

Farmwise launched the new Vulcan smart implement at the show. Vulcan is completely re-engineered and leverages everything that Farmwise learned from several years of running the Titan, an autonomous weeding solution for clients in the Salinas Valley area of California.

The company plans to continue running its existing Titan-based fleet, but is not planning to expand this service.

The first advantage of the new Vulcan implement is that it is available in a three-row width, which immediately makes it three times faster and more efficient than the Titan. Secondly, Vulcan can be deployed behind any existing manual tractor, which opens up the market for Farmwise. Vulcan could also be deployed behind any of the autonomous tractors currently on the market, matching (or exceeding) the capabilities of the Titan. The result is a win-win for both farmers and Farmwise.

The device uses machine vision and artificial intelligence to identify crop plants from weeds and beneficials, and all of the AI models created with Titan can be leveraged to run Vulcan.

Finally, Vulcan uses hydraulics to actuate the weeding blades whereas Titan used pneumatics to actuate the blades. This provides more speed, precision and stiffness to the blade motion.

Vulcan is simple to operate as users only need to select the crop and row spacing, and then drive down the furrows. Vulcan does the rest. Farmwise technicians remotely monitor the operation and can quickly handle any alerts or errors that might come up during operations.

NOTE: Thomas Palomares, CTO & Co-Founder at FarmWise will present a use case at the upcoming 2023 Robotics Summit and Expo in Boston, MA on May 10-11 2023.

Monarch Tractor

The new Wingspan.ai software from Monarch Tractor is both a fleet manager and a tractor data management application. | Credit: The Robot Report

I have been covering Monarch Tractor since the company emerged from stealth in 2020. At the World Ag Expo last year, the company was featured only at partner booths. However, this year, Monarch Tractor had a booth and demo area that was bigger than John Deere or any of the other “veteran” tractor companies at the show. The company has raised over $80M in the last two years and began shipping its first production units in November of 2022. The company also signed a deal with Foxconn to start manufacturing the tractor in its Lordstown OH manufacturing facility.

So it should be no surprise that the company made such a huge investment in marketing for this event. The company is now making revenue and has a deep backlog of customers ready to buy and deploy the tractors. Every marketing dollar spent can be justified with a potential sale.

At the show, Monarch introduced a new fleet management software package called Wingspan.ai. Wingspan includes a new user interface and a feature set that simplifies the deployment, management, and maintenance of the tractors deployed on a farm. The company fully expects some customers to deploy more than one tractor, so fleet management features are key to controlling the day-to-day operations of the tractors.

Monarch is an open-source data platform and the company plans to make all of the information available about the Monarch tractor operations.

CEO Praveen Penmentsa has a vision where all of this tractor operational information flows upward and is consolidated for the farmer.

Carbon Robotics

Carbon Robotics created an autonomous weeder that uses lasers to zap the weeds and instantly kill them without any dangerous chemicals. In many ways, it’s the ideal solution for managing weeds without disturbing the soil or introducing harmful chemicals that might impact humans, animals, and pollinators.

There were no big announcements from Carbon Robotics this year other than the addition of new crops to the solution. This means that they have new vision identification models for new crops that expand the application for additional crops.

Most notably this year at the show, there was no autonomous version of the Carbon Robotics solution on display. The company is now all in on the smart implement version of its laser-wielding weeder. Both Carbon Robotics and Farmwise have arrived at the same conclusion: single-row autonomous platform cultivation solutions are not as economically viable as a multi-row, smart-implement version of the solution. It’s simple math, when you can cover three times the area in one pass, you can do the work three times faster. This is just the start of the smart-implement market.

The company also introduced an on-tractor power generator for the smart implement that provides onboard power for the unit using the PTO on the tractor.

Farm-NG

Farm-NG provides a variety of configurable components that can be put together to create any number of different style autonomous vehicles for the farm. | Credit: The Robot Report

Farm-NG is an Ag-robotics startup that launched its solutions at this show. The product is an industrial erector set-like platform with open-source software for the development of custom, autonomous farm machines. The Farm-NG product line includes a number of motors, linear actuators, sensors, cameras and a central control unit, all of which are plug-and-play over the CAN bus. It also includes ag-specific attachments such as discs, furrows, blades, tines, a seeding assembly, an integrated compost spreader, and a bunch of other miscellaneous components.

The genius of the system is its modularity and openness. Farmers are tinkerers, and this is the perfect toolkit for any small to medium-sized farming operation. The software included with the onboard controller is designed to be completely programmable through the touchscreen interface. This enables control over the various motors and attachments. However, the system is also completely open, and a programmer can extend the capabilities and write complex, vision or sensor-guided control algorithms. The system also enables secure, remote monitoring and remote teleoperation of the rig through either a WiFi or cellular network.

Bluewhite Robotics

This John Deere tractor has been converted into an autonomous tractor with Bluewhite autonomy package. | Credit: The Robot Report

Bluewhite is an Israeli startup that can automate any existing tractor with the addition of a sensor package and control actuators. The business model for BlueWhite is to work with the existing fleet of tractors that are owned by a farmer and add on the controls that convert the fleet into fully autonomous vehicles, while still preserving the manual drive capabilities of the vehicle.

The company has already converted a number of tractor models from the leading tractor manufacturers. They design custom actuators for steering, throttle, brakes, transmission, etc, that can be retrofitted onto the vehicles. As the company engineers these actuators for a new model, it is building a portfolio of controls that it can leverage for subsequent customers.

The company has a software package that enables remote monitoring and teleoperation of the solution. The software does rely on GPS, RTK or Comms for successful operation. Smart implements are also controllable providing autonomous operations from seed to harvest. 

Bluewhite operates a robot as a service (RaaS) model that enables farmers to operate the equipment locally while Bluewhite monitors the operation continually and handles exceptions and errors to preserve uptime and continuity.

Amos Power

Amos Power launched its new all-electric autonomous tractor. | Credit: The Robot Report

Amos Power is another startup that launched its autonomous tractor at the 2023 WAE. The company is building a completely autonomous, all-electric, tracked tractor. The platform features three separate electric motors, one for each drive train and a separate electrically driven PTO. This enables the PTO to run at a speed and power setting that is different from the drive train of the tractor.

The Amos Power tractor is fully autonomous and does not include a driver’s seat or any way for a farmer to ride in the vehicle. This is different from many of the other competitors and puts Amos Power into the unmanned autonomy segment of the market.

The tractor weighs 2500 kg (6600 lbs) and has a drawbar horsepower of 75-85 hp. The PTO has 34-40 hp. The company is currently taking reservations for its production generation of vehicles.

Guardian Agriculture

Guardian Ag launched its autonomous, unmanned crop-spraying drone. | Credit: The Robot Report

Guardian Agriculture was one of the few aerial unmanned solutions on display at the show. The Guardian SC-1 is a four-prop drone that features 1.5 m (60-inch) propellers and a 76 Liter (20 gal) payload. The vehicle is designed for autonomous aerial spraying operations and is designed to be operated by a single operator who is managing flight operations and the refilling station. The SC-1 would typically fly for 3-4 minutes before emptying its onboard tank and returning to the refill/recharge station. A quick five-minute refill/recharge puts the drone back into the air for continuous operations until all tasks are completed.

The company is currently developing a larger version of the platform that will feature 2 m (80-inch) props and a large capacity tank to extend flight capabilities.

Operators are required to acquire all of the appropriate drone flight and chemical handling certifications before operating the drone.

Beewise

Beewise is innovating the beekeeping industry with a fully autonomous beehive that provides real-time data on bee health and activity. | Credit: The Robot Report

One of the most unique autonomous innovations on display at the show was the Beewise beehome. This is a climate-controlled, solar-powered, remotely monitored beehive with a capacity of up to 24 different hives. The base unit measures 2.5m x 2m x 2m (8 feet x 6.5 feet x 6.5 feet), and weighs less than a ton without the colonies inside.

In addition to monitoring the bee hives and alerting the hive owner to the health of the bees, the unit also features an internal robot that autonomously harvests honey. The robot extracts the individual honeycombs from a hive, gently swiping the bees from the frame during the extraction process. The robot then inserts the frame into an extraction unit that spins the frame at high speed to extract the honey. The frames are then returned to the hive.

The hive operators also received real-time alerts tracking bee movements and other alert conditions.

Vinergy Inc

Vinergy developed an AMR for moving grape boxes from the crop row to the in-field pack-out station so that grape harvesters do not need to leave the row. | Credit: The Robot Report

Vinergy Inc is an experienced machine builder that is expanding it product portfolio to include automation for grape farmers. The company introduced the Gopher IQ autonomous tray mover to support the table grape harvesting process by moving filled boxes of grapes from the in-field rows to a central in-field packing station. This use case keeps the harvesting crew from having to leave their in-row location to deliver the filled boxes to the packing stations, typically a time-wasted operation for the harvesters. Due to the fragility of the crop, table grapes need to be harvested by hand.

The system is provided with a robots-as-a-service (RaaS) business model. The Gopher HQ solution is a manual pack-out station for grape harvesting that provides a mobile packing station structure that can be easily moved anywhere in the field. It includes eight pack out stations, combined with an automated outfeed belt that queues cases of product. The HQ folds down and is designed to trailer up to three Gopher iQ units for transport on the road. The solution is available for deployment during the 2023 harvest season.

The company is also producing the Rhino, a new solution designed for the dairy feeding application. The Rhino is designed to operate in a dairy barn and push the cow feedback within reach of the herd as they feed.

The company also recently secured a grant to work with aerial drone vendor Tevel to provide a ground-based platform to move the battery pack for the harvesting drones, while also providing the structure for gathering fruit. The prototype unit is a much smaller scale than the S&S base unit shown elsewhere at the show, and it was optimized for safely packing stone fruit (peaches, apricots) that are more fragile than apples.

Burro

Burro launched a new autonomous charging station for the Burro AMR. | Credit: The Robot Report

Burro had a number of autonomous units on display at the show. The company is expanding operations with new scouting payload features. CEO Charlie Andersen describes the new security patrol feature as an opportunity for current (and future) Burro operators to extend the usage of their Burro mobile robots after the working day. Unfortunately, farmers are often the target of thieves during the overnight hours, when valuable crops and/or equipment are stolen. By deploying Burros equipped with additional cameras and sensors to patrol remote areas of the farm, farmers can feel more secure that they will be alerted to issues.

The company has also released a new charging station that enables Burros to autonomously recharge the battery without the need for manual plug-in or battery swap. This also supports the security patrol workflow by enabling the vehicles to charge themselves during overnight hours.

Pollination is another task that Burro is pursuing. Burro has started a partnership with Bloomx.ai to deploy a blueberry pollinating payload to the burro and have the vehicle autonomously traverse a field. Pollination for blueberries occurs by shaking the branches and moving the pollen from the male to the female flowers.

Finally, the company is pursuing the solar market including mowing weeds throughout a solar installation, as well as autonomously shuttling solar panels for workers during an install.

Naio Technologies

Naio Technologies demonstrated its complete lineup of autonomous tractors designed for specific crops. | Credit: The Robot Report

Naio Technologies had demo units on display for each of the various autonomous tractors in its portfolio. From the tiny Oz robot to the much larger Orio and Ted platforms. Naio has an established base of users in its native France, and the company is now expanding operations to the USA. The company focuses primarily on weeding and spraying operations in vegetable crops and especially in grapes and vineyards. All of the vehicles in the Naio lineup are unmanned autonomous vehicles and the Orio and Ted platforms carry the implement between the wheel base, which simplifies the safety requirements and the overall driving and control of the vehicle.

GUSS Agriculture

GUSS Agriculture launched a new ground sprayer attachment for the standard and mini GUSS sprayer base units. This attachment turns the GUSS vehicle from an aerial sprayer for orchard trees into a ground spraying machine that can dispense weed killer on weeds on the ground between the orchard trees. This helps with weed management during the growing season and helps to preserve chemical usage by limiting the overspray onto bare ground. The unit is equipped with downward-facing cameras that only spray when it can see the presence of weeds on the ground.

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Airobotics’ drone system is fully automated, industrial grade and suitable for many applications. | Source: Airobotics

Airobotics, a subsidiary of Ondas Holdings, announced that it received a multi-system purchase order from Sky Go Transport of Goods worth $3.5 million. The purchase order is conditioned by the completion of proof of concept. 

SkyGo is a UAE-based company with a license to transport goods via air travel with drones throughout Abu Dhabi. SkyGo and Airobotics have signed a term sheet for a joint venture, called the SkyGo JV, that focuses on deploying aerial drone services. 

The SkyGo JV will use the Optimus System to provide data and information services to Industrial and Governmental entities in the UAE. Airobotics’ Urban Drone Infrastructure, part of the Optimus system, is designed to operate as a network of smart drones. 

“Our partnership with Airobotics will enable us to offer a wide range of services to our customers in Abu Dhabi using their Optimus System, an autonomous drone platform with powerful capabilities,” Mohammed Al Dhaheri, SkyGo CEO, said. “Through this partnership, SkyGo will benefit from the technical expertise of the Airobotics team combined with our innovative business model and local knowledge.”

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The companies expect to deploy more than 20 systems across Abu Dhabi over the next few years. The partnership between the two companies was developed and advanced by strategic partner DoverTower DMCC, a UAE company that specializes in large-scale tech partnerships in the country and the region.

“We are excited to work with the visionary leadership of SkyGo to deploy valuable drone services to critical infrastructure, logistics and government customers across the city of Abu Dhabi,” Meir Kliner, Airobotics Founder and CEO, said. “The combination of SkyGo’s market and application expertise and Airobotics robust technology platform enables a powerful partnership. We believe the Smart City drone services go-to-market model with SkyGo in Abu Dhabi will be scalable in many markets throughout the world providing a wide variety of smart cities data solutions in urban environments.”

Airobotics expects the initial commercial customer deployment by SkyGo JV to happen in the first quarter of 2023. 

Ondas Holdings recently announced that it plans to accelerate its integration plan for its drone segment, which includes American Robotics, ahead of the close of its acquisition of the company. Ondas planned to close its Airobotics acquisition, announced in July 2022 and valued at $70.6 million, by the end of January 2023. 

Its integration plan for American Robotics and Airobotics includes developing a streamlined product roadmap strategy and customer support plans as well as a reduction of personnel at American Robotics.

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American Robotics, which will soon be combined with Airobotics, offers an autonomous drone system called Scout. | Source: American Robotics

Ondas Holdings announced that it plans to accelerate its integration plan for its drone segment, which includes American Robotics, ahead of the close of its acquisition of Airobotics. 

The company hopes that it will close its Airobotics acquisition by the end of this month. Its integration plan for American Robotics and Airobotics includes developing a streamlined product roadmap strategy and customer support plans as well as a reduction of personnel at American Robotics. Ondas did not give details on how many employees it planned to lay off, but Eric Brock, the Chairman and CEO of Ondas, tweeted that the headcount reduction would be “substantial.”

These plans included a substantial headcount reduction at AR. We are grateful for the significant contributions of our colleagues. We wish them the best and will provide any support we can as they find new opportunities.

— Eric Brock (@CeoOndas) January 11, 2023

Ondas hopes to focus on securing revenue growth quickly and a return on its investment. It expects that its integration plan can results in $18-20 million in annual savings compared to operating the two companies as separate businesses. In the short term, Ondas expects the plan could save them $500,000 in Q1 of 2023. 

“We are confident that accelerating our integration plans will position us for success as we move forward with the acquisition of Airobotics, focus on near-term revenue generation and work towards profitable growth for Ondas,” Brock said in a release. “While the decision to reduce personnel at American Robotics was difficult, we believe it was necessary to shrink our operating costs and eliminate anticipated redundancies within the future combined operations. On behalf of the executive team and board of directors, we thank all members of the American Robotics staff for their contributions in driving AR’s success to date.”

Ondas plans to hold a virtual investor event in February 2023 to give more details on the business acquisition and combination. It first announced the acquisition in July 2022. The deal is intended to accelerate American Robotics’ technical development and regulatory roadmap and expand the breadth of applications, use cases and vertical AR targets.

Airobotics’ Optimus System is an autonomous unmanned aircraft system that focuses on high-value applications within the industrial, homeland security and smart city services market. The system includes an industrial-grade drone-in-a-box and the Optimus Airbase, which allows for robotic battery and payload swapping. 

The Scout System from American Robotics includes Scout, a fully-autonomous drone, ScoutBase, a weatherproof charging and edge computing station and ScoutView, a fleet management and analytics software. Scout is intended for industrial, agricultural, and defense markets. 

American Robotics was acquired by Ondas Holdings in May 2021 for $70.6 million. The company recently added seven additional sites of operation approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its automated beyond visual line of site (BVLOS) drone technology. It was the first company approved by the FAA to operate automated drones without human operators on-site. 

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(From left to right) Engineer Jeremy Spink and injury biomechanics expert Barry Miller set up an impact test for a drone. | Source: Virginia Tech

Three of AgEagle’s eBee X series drones are the first to pass Virginia Tech’s set of test methods that demonstrate adherence to the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) requirements for drone flights over people. 

This approval means anyone operating one of the approved AgEagles eBee X drones, the eBee X, eBee GEO and eBee TAC, in an applicable configuration can legally fly it over people. This process removes the need for users to seek permission for each individual operation through a waiver system. 

AgEagle’s eBee X fixed-wing drones are typically used for mapping, surveying and inspections. The lightweight, foam aircraft weigh less than 4.4 lbs. 

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American Robotics’ Scout System can now be used to automate the inspection of oil and gas assets. | Source: American Robotics

American Robotics, a subsidiary of Ondas Holdings, and Infrared Cameras Inc. (ICI) announced a strategic partnership. American Robotics will use ICI’s optical gas imaging (OGI) and thermal sensors in its autonomous Scout System.

The Scout System is an autonomous drone system involving Scout, the company’s AI-powered drone, Scoutbase, a weatherproof charging and edge computing station and Scoutview, a front-end fleet management and analytics software. ICI’s sensors will allow the Scout System to automate the inspection of oil and gas assets.  

“American Robotics continues to see some of the oil and gas industry’s largest companies focus on integrating autonomous drones into their operations to conduct regular site inspections and ensure employee safety,” Reese Mozer, co-founder and CEO of American Robotics, said. “Through our strategic technology partnership with ICI, we continue to expand our product offerings with key features tailor-made for the oil and gas industry, enabling customers to automate inspections of critical assets such as tanks, pipes and pumps. Importantly, the solutions being developed in connection with our ICI partnership are designed to meet specific customer requests.”

The new partnership between the two companies will allow Scout System users to reduce operating expenses, minimize reputational risk and safeguard employees and the environment. ICI’s OGI and thermal sensors allow Scout to collect critical data on missions and identify anomalies like methane leaks and equipment and electrical hotspots. 

“We are excited to partner with American Robotics to bring innovative solutions to the oil and gas industry,” Gary Strahan, Founder and CEO of Infrared Cameras Inc, said. “We believe that our state-of-the-art software and multi-sensor payloads combined with American Robotics’ leading drone solution, will greatly benefit clients across the oil and gas industry.”

In September, American Robotics announced that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued the company a new exemption that removes conditions and limitations that restricted commercial operations from its previous exemption. The company received a Part 107 Waiver for expanded Automated Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) flights.

American Robotics was the first company to receive FAA approval to operate automated drones without humans on-site in 2021. This latest exemption is an amendment to that waiver, which originally restricted operations to research and development, crew training and market surveys. Now, the company has the full authority to operate its autonomous Scout System drone commercially without limitations. 

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A Wing drone caught in power lines. | Source: The Age, Energex

A Wing delivery drone crashed into power lines in Browns Plains, Queensland, Australia on Thursday. The crash left around 2,000 homes without power for 45 minutes and 300 without power for three hours, Danny Donald, a spokesperson from Australian utility provider Energex, told ABC News Australia and The Age.

The drone landed on top of a power line around 2 PM and was hit with 11,000 volts of electricity, Donald told The Age. The drone caught fire and then fell to the ground, where it sat when Energex’s crew arrived on the scene.

Wing told ABC News Australia that the drone made a precautionary controlled landing and came to rest on an overhead power line. Wing immediately reported the incident to Energex, who handled the incident from there, and apologized for the inconvenience caused.

There was no permanent damage done to the network, according to Donald, so Energex would not be requesting Wing cover any damages. However, Donald did advise that those operating commercial or private drones stay vigilant of power lines.

Wing, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, operates a fleet of lightweight and autonomous delivery drones. The company has completed over 250,000 commercial deliveries across three continents. Earlier this year, it launched a drone delivery service in the Dallas suburbs.

This is the first time Energex has had issues with drones diving into power lines, according to Donald. Wing told The Age it planned to conduct a review of the incident.

The Robot Report reached out to Wing for comment but had not heard back as of press time.

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Kewei Robot’s vertical takeoff and landing fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle. | Source: Kewei Robot

Guardforce AI announced that it signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) to acquire Shenzhen Kewei Robot Technology Company Limited, a Shenzhen Intelligent Guardforce Robot Co subsidiary. The purchase price and consummation of the acquisition are subject to the completion of Guardforce AI’s due diligence and an independent audit, as well as a third-party valuation and fairness opinion. 

Guardforce AI plans to pay for the acquisition with 10% cash and 90% common stock of the company at a value of at least $1 per share. Within the next few months, the company plans to enter into a definitive purchase agreement with Kewei Robot. 

Kewei Robot specializes in developing robotics software solutions and robotics management platforms, as well as robotics sales and technical services. The company offers a line of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It offers them under a Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) model.

“We are thrilled to announce this proposed acquisition of Kewei, a qualified National High-tech Enterprise in China, which holds more than a dozen robotics-related patents and more than 40 copyrights to its proprietary software. Its robotic solutions cover a variety of recurring revenue streams such as technical services and robotics advertising,” Lin Jia, President of Guardforce AI, said. “The RaaS platform currently operates approximately 65,000 robots that belong to Kewei, clients, and partners, of which more than 40,000 are equipped with screens for advertising and interactive features. Kewei’s customer base includes an impressive roster of Fortune 500 corporations across various industries. In 2021, the unaudited Chinese GAAP revenue for Kewei was approximately USD $15 million. Overall, we believe this proposed acquisition, including Kewei’s highly skilled R&D team, robust robotics platform, operational skills, as well as its advertising and technical capabilities, provide us a solid foundation to further expand our geographic footprint across China and other international markets.”

Originally, Guardforce AI announced an LOI to acquire 12 of Kewei Robot’s subsidiary companies, and before that, it planned to acquire seven of its subsidiaries. This new agreement supersedes and replaces both of these old agreements. 

“After conducting further due diligence, it became clear that acquiring Kewei itself, compared to acquiring only the Kewei sales channel subsidiaries, would add both a premier roster of business clients, as well as advanced technologies that we believe will help to accelerate our strategic expansion within the robotics industry worldwide. Overall, we remain focused on our goal to transform Guardforce AI into a leading integrated security company in AI and robotics.”

Guardforce AI is a global integrated security solutions provider that focuses on developing robotic solutions and information security services. 

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The IP-54-rated aircraft features a 31-minute flight time, radar-based front collision avoidance, and backpack portability, so professional UAV pilots can fly safely when and where the mission demands. | Credit: FLIR

Teledyne FLIR, part of Teledyne Technologies Incorporated, launched SIRAS, a professional drone that includes a quick-connect dual radiometric thermal and visible camera payload. Engineered for data security, performance, and affordability, SIRAS is optimized for industrial and utility inspection, public safety, firefighting, and search and rescue missions.

Teledyne acquired FLIR for $8 billion in a major merger, early in 2021. Since the acquisition, the new division has continued to engineer new products and expand its portfolio of drone-specific options.

“Designed to provide pilots with the flexibility to get the job done, SIRAS delivers a geofence-free flight experience with thermal and visible imaging capabilities at $9,695 USD,” said, Mike Walters, vice president of product management, Teledyne FLIR. “SIRAS is the only enterprise drone to currently incorporate the patented MSX technology, which overlays the edge detail from the visible camera on the thermal image to provide critical information in real-time.”

The IP-54-rated aircraft features a 31-minute flight time, radar-based front collision avoidance, and backpack portability, so professional UAV pilots can fly safely when and where the mission demands. The included Vue TV128 payload features a quick-connect gimbal, which provides imagery compatible with FLIR Thermal Studio and leading third-party photogrammetry applications. The 16MP visible camera can zoom 128x to pinpoint details. The integrated 640×512 pixel, radiometric Boson provides best-in-class thermal imagery, 5x digital zoom, and temperature measurement of every pixel in the scene.

With a startup time of one minute, pilots can get eyes on the scene quickly and maintain control via a dual-band radio (2.4/5.8 GHz) connection, while hot-swappable batteries ensure efficient operation. To improve data security, SIRAS stores imagery on an onboard SD card and does not include cloud connection capability. Furthermore, pilots are not required to create an online profile, increasing ease of use and reducing potential unintended online data access.

The SIRAS aircraft was designed in collaboration with and is manufactured by Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corporation (CIRC) in Taiwan, a subsidiary of Coretronic Group. Final payload integration and quality control are completed in the USA.

SIRAS will begin shipping in the fourth quarter of 2022 in the US. SIRAS is dual use and classified under US Department of Commerce jurisdiction as EAR 6A003.b.4.a.

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American Robotics’ drone Scout and its ScoutBase. | Source: American Robotics

American Robotics, a subsidiary of Ondas Holdings, announced that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued the company a new exemption that removes conditions and limitations that restricted commercial operations from its previous exemption. The company received a Part 107 Waiver for expanded Automated Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) flights.

American Robotics was the first company to receive FAA approval to operate automated drones without humans on-site in 2021. This latest exemption is an amendment to that waiver, which originally restricted operations to research and development, crew training and market surveys. Now, the company has the full authority to operate its autonomous Scout System drone commercially without limitations. 

“American Robotics believes that autonomy, safety, and government approval are the bedrocks of a scalable commercial drone business, and we continue to execute on this mission with additional approvals from the FAA,” Reese Mozer, co-founder and CEO of American Robotics, said. “This achievement is not only a milestone for our company and our customers, but it’s also a signal that the commercial drone industry is progressing in the United States, an achievement that American Robotics is honored to be leading.”

The Scout System includes Scout, a fully-autonomous drone, ScoutBase, a weatherproof charging and edge computing station and ScoutView, fleet management and analytics software. Scout is intended for industrial, agricultural, and defense markets. Once the system is installed, Scout will autonomously run missions to collect, process and analyze data.

The FAA gave the waiver allowing the company unlimited commercial operations following positive results in research and development, crew training and market surveys. It was officially granted on August 19, 2022. 

American Robotics announced in July 2022 that it had signed a term sheet to acquire Airobotics, an Israeli developer of autonomous unmanned aircraft systems. The merger is expected to close before the end of 2022. 

The acquisition is intended to accelerate the company’s technical development and regulatory roadmap and expand the breadth of applications, use cases and vertical AR targets. Combining American Robotics and Airobotics also means bringing together leading engineering and aviation talent and two world-class technology platforms.  

American Robotics was acquired by Ondas Holdings in May 2021 for $70.6 million. The company recently added seven additional sites of operation approved by the FAA for its automated BVLOS technology.

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(From left to right) Pieter Van Zyl, Mechatronics Engineer, and Andries Louw, co-founder, director and chief pilot, with the AirSeed Drone. | Source: AirSeed Technologies

AirSeed Technologies has partnered with CAL International to design and engineer a seed pod delivery system for AirSeed’s tree-planting aerial drones. 

The companies began collaborating when AirSeed, an Australian drone startup, approached CAL International, a British engineering and smart tech firm, to ask for help in refining the planting system for its drone technology. 

In particular, AirSeed needed to improve the way its existing seed pod delivery system, the AirSeed drone, worked for users and how well it was manufactured.

“Working with CAL, they have managed to take an existing delivery system design and turn it into a unique pod delivery mechanism,” Andrew Walker, AirSeed co-founder, said. “The design and engineering that has gone into the aerial platform from CAL also means we can produce a great number of AirSeed aerial platforms and deploy these into the field quicker to speed up the process of reforestation which will help us in a race against time to mitigate climate change.”

The drone uses artificial and data intelligence to operate a payload and delivery system that identifies and locates target areas with GPS coordinates. The AirSeed team is careful when picking which areas to plant, taking into consideration what plant species are already in the area. 

The drone drops carbon pods designed specifically for the kind of soil it will be planted in, ensuring trees have the best chance of growth. The pod also protects the seed from combative elements, like insects, rodents and birds, during its germination cycle. When it rains, the carbon begins absorbing water, which allows the seed to germinate. 

AirSeed’s drones take off autonomously and follow a pre-programmed flight plan while dropping an exact quantity of carbon pods at a rate of two pods per second. The drone follows a predetermined planting pattern before landing.

After planting, the drone uses its mapping system to pinpoint the pods, taking into account its flight trajectory and the wind conditions on the day of planting. Knowing where the pods are located makes it possible for the team to send drones on return flights to map tree growth. 

“When AirSeed explained what they hoped to achieve, it was a challenge that we were delighted to take on,” Cliff Kirby, CAL International founder and engineer, said. “The huge significance and impact that this innovation can bring in the fight against climate change is truly global. Together with AirSeed based in Australia and South Africa and CAL based in the UK, this is a global collaboration and the very definition of the art of the possible.

With a two-person team, the AirSeed drones can plant 40,000 pods a day. The company’s goal is to plant 100 million trees by 2024. AirSeed’s platform is 80% cheaper than current planting methods, which can be and labor-intensive, and 25 times faster than manual planting. 

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A floating solar farm off the coast of Thailand, a $34 million project, will be monitored by Percepto drones. | Source: Percepto

Percepto announced that it has completed a proof-of-concept (POC) with the Electric Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) to monitor a 250-acre floating solar farm. The farm is the size of 70 soccer fields and is located 350 m from the nearest shoreline. 

Percepto’s AIM software and drone-in-a-box solution will autonomously perform routine inspections of panels and other equipment to detect anomalies and ensure everything is operating properly. The drones will provide regular operations and maintenance reports, map the location of the panels; and perform inspections of substations, transformers, floating fences and solar floaters, which hold the solar panels above water. 

When the drones find an anomaly, workers are notified. The drone provides the workers with the exact problem that needs to be resolved and the exact location of the problem. Percepto partnered with Top Engineering Corporation, a Thai drone consultancy and equipment provider, for this project.

“We are very excited to partner with EGAT and Top Engineering Corporation on this unique and environmentally sustainable electricity project,” Percepto Co-founder and CEO Dor Abuhasira said. “Autonomous drones are strengthening the sustainable positioning of renewable energy facilities to achieve global climate targets. With Percepto drones, solar farms such as EGAT can be consistently monitored and inspected regardless of their size or location to further unleash the potential of renewable energy sources.”

Without Percepto’s drones to monitor the floating solar panels, equipment inspection and maintenance would involve inspection staff accessing the panels by boat to manually review them. Rain, extreme heat, fog and other weather conditions make this task even more challenging. 

“Percepto drones will dramatically improve the consistency with which the panel provides customers with electricity, how quickly repairs are made, and the safety level of our employees,” EGAT Chief of the Fuel Business Development Department, Chanapan Kongnam said. “Rather than sending out staff to inspect the panel, we will deploy inspections much more frequently than could be achieved manually. Staff are only sent out when repairs are necessary, and they will know the nature of the problem and where it will be located to spend as little time on the water as possible.”

Earlier this year, Percepto received Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flight approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for refineries in Tyler, Texas and El Dorado, Arkansas. The approval means that the self-flying drones can fly in its downstream energy operations without a pilot being able to see them.

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