Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/846046
C ommercial drone technology company Airware has entered a partnership with drone manufacturer senseFly to expand its aircraft offerings. Airware, which sells drones and end-to-end map- ping solutions to construction, mining, surveying and other business customers, currently offers only rotary drones, which are driven by multiple rotors. But through its agreement with senseFly, Airware will offer the fi xed-wing eBee Plus drone. The eBee Plus is a lightweight survey-grade drone that can map 540 acres in a single 59-minute fl ight. Many surveyors prefer fi xed- wing drones to rotary models due to their longer fl ight times and higher speeds. They can survey large areas much faster than the heavier, battery-hungry rotory drones. As part of the deal, the eBee Plus will also be sold through Caterpillar dealers. In February, Cat announced an investment in Airware designed to accelerate the rollout of drone solutions at their dealerships and make the technology "a core part of their business." Dealers will offer services that com- bine senseFly's automated data collection with Airware's professional services, training and cloud-based analytics to "turn aerial data into busi- ness intelligence," Airware says. "Pairing the eBee Plus' aerial effi ciency and photogrammetric ac- curacy with our powerful enterprise- grade workfl ow enables companies to ensure compliance, enhance worker safety and capture more ac- curate, repeatable data to improve decision-making," says Jonathan Downey, founder and CEO of Air- ware. The eBee Plus also features built- in real-time kinematic/post-pro- cessed kinematic (RTK/PPL) survey- ing functionality. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, "RTK procedures do not require post processing of the data to obtain a position solution. A radio at the reference receiver broadcasts the position of the reference position to the roving receivers. This allows for real-time surveying in the fi eld and allows the surveyor to check the quality of the measurements without having to process the data... PPK surveys are similar to RTK procedures, but the baselines are not processed in real-time. PPK involves using one or more roving receivers and at least one reference receiver remaining stationary over a known control point. GPS data are simul- taneously collected at the reference and rover receivers. The data are downloaded from the receiver, and the baselines processed using GPS software." Jean-Christophe Zufferey, senseFly CEO, says combining the eBee Plus platform with Airware's cloud-based business intelligence will create a "solution that enables custom- ers to safely collect, and act upon, the geospatial data they need." That includes calculating extraction volumes and monitoring a site's progress. A video of the eBee Plus drone in action can be viewed on our website at: http://bit.ly/ebeeplus – Wayne Grayson EquipmentWorld.com | July 2017 45 technology | staff report Fixed-wing eBee Plus surveying drone coming to Cat dealers through Airware/senseFly partnership Airware's partnership with senseFly means it will add the fi xed-wing eBee Plus to its drone fl eet.