Surveying Archives - RotorDrone

Percepto Monitors Florida Power Grid

Percepto, pioneering autonomous inspection by industrial robotics, today announced it will deploy autonomous drones to monitor Florida Power & Light’s substations and power distribution grids across the state. The first electric utility to deploy drone-in-a-box (DIB) technology statewide, the arrangement represents the largest commercial autonomous drone project in the world. It’s also the first operation […]

Mission to Mars – NASA’s high-tech RC helicopter

The success of Ingenuity, otherwise known as the “Mars helicopter,” has united the world in celebration of a unique event in the history of aviation: the first powered flight by an aircraft on another world. Even the staid International Civil Aeronautics Organization got in on the act, designating the bare patch of Martian soil where […]

Counting Penguins

Counting penguins is harder than it sounds. With freezing rain, snow, and chilling winds that limit the flight windows for the surveys, it takes scientists using three full days to map the location of 300,000 nesting pairs of Adélie penguins on Antarctica’s Cape Crozier. Now, UgCS software by SPH Engineering has helped scientists to cut […]

LiDAR Mapping a Gold Mine

When Consolidated Gold Mine in Dahlonega, Georgia, wanted to open more of its areas to public tours, they asked Inspired Intelligence, a family owned and operated drone business in Buford, Georgia, to help. Inspired Intelligence CEO and founder Nir Pe’er explained, “Besides drone technology, we also used new, amazing cutting-edge technology called LiDAR. We were […]

Drone Mapping Versus Terrestrial Laser Scanners

In the drone industry, it is taken nearly as gospel that small uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) will allow people to do their jobs better, safer, and faster than whatever the traditional method happens to be—especially when it comes to public safety. However, if you are making decisions that have financial consequences or lives on the […]

FAA State-Wide BVLOS Waiver

Drones are the N.C. Department of Transportation’s newest tool in maintaining the safety of the state’s bridges and other infrastructure. The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday approved a waiver that allows NCDOT to operate Unmanned Aircraft Systems beyond visual line of sight while conducting bridge inspections. This approval is part of North Carolina’s participation in […]

High-Risk Operations: Embry-Riddle bridge-inspection challenges

Pilot Report To any person who has ever uttered the phrase, “Those who can’t do, teach,” I’d like to extend an invitation: spend a day on the flight line with Dr. Scott Burgess of the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide Campus Department of Flight. For myself, I’ve always had the utmost respect for the teaching profession, […]

Army UAVs Avoid Powerlines

At the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory, researchers have developed a novel sensor and software application to detect and avoid energized power lines in the vicinity of unmanned aerial system, or UAS. The goal is to provide autonomous systems sufficient time and distance to react, avoid wires and navigate follow-on maneuvers. Army […]

Mission Profile: 3D Mapping An Osprey Nest (On a Cell Tower!)

Wildlife conservation is one use for small, civil uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) that is seldom listed among the marquee applications for the technology, such orthomosaic mapping, industrial inspection, and emergency response, to name a few, yet it has the potential to make significant contributions to environmental preservation. That’s what I learned when June Stephens, an […]

Shell’s Drone Aerial Response Team [VIDEO]

In the Oil and Gas industry, safety is always the number one priority. From inspecting vast tank farms to the soaring tops of flare stacks, safety measures are paramount and necessary to safeguard workers against potential hazards. Shell leads the way in deploying new drone technologies to provide smarter insights and safer operations. Shell’s Drone […]