Aerialtronics develops UAS with sense and avoid technology

Aerialtronics has developed sense and avoid technology for its small unmanned aircraft it calls the  Altura Zenith.

The sense and avoid technology developed by the Dutch company will help the sUAS to stay away from objects during inspections that include telecommunication towers, buildings and bridges.

“We are one of the first to market with sense and avoid technology on a commercial grade unmanned aircraft system’” Jeremy Wigmore, Aerialtronics CEO said via email to UAS Magazine. “It has been developed in-house and it will be embedded in all our UAS once released. Current systems in the field also can be easily upgraded. It is another major development in the safe commercial use of UAS, he said.

Aerialtronics has developed a reliable sense and avoid system which senses its surroundings up to 49.2 feet in diameter, Wigmore said. Because the system has great responsiveness, it can avoid moving obstacles which suddenly appear within its detection range, he said.

“Active distance sensing and distance keeping with a 360-degree sensing coverage means aerial inspection missions can be performed safely even when flying close to objects in harsh conditions,” Wigmore said. The Altura Zenith has a flight time of up to 35 minutes, he said.

Adding the sense and avoid capabilities to the Zenith Altura, known for delivering data results in real application environments, means missions can more easily be performed with less concern about the flying and more focus can be placed on data gathering and creating results, he said.

The sense and avoid technology, which comes as four plug-and-play sensor extensions that are simple to install, is expected to be available during the next three months, Wigmore said.

Reaction at the Unmanned Systems Expo held Feb. 2-4 at The Hague to the Altura Zenith sense and avoid technology was excellent, Wigmore said.

“This is a significant development in the ongoing testing of sense and avoid technology for commercial UAS.”