Wingcopter to begin offering BVLOS surveying
German drone manufacturer Wingcopter is expanding beyond cargo drones to include the sale of long-range BVLOS LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) surveying products.
To do so, the firm’s Wingcopter 198 drone, will be equipped with laser scanning and camera systems. The aim is to give customers the opportunity to survey up to 37miles (60km) of linear infrastructure in one mission, carrying a 10lbs (4.5kg) sensor system.
Potential use cases include the inspection of power lines, pipelines, railways and roads, as well as the mapping of terrain and vegetation that is difficult to access.
Ansgar Kadura, co-founder and chief strategy officer said: “After years of developing and relentless testing, we have frozen the Wingcopter 198 in the configuration that is currently undergoing FAA type certification in the United States. The drone has unique payload and range characteristics, and with a proven product lifetime of more than 1,000 flight hours, it is one of the most reliable long-range eVTOL UAS on the market. Based on this configuration, we are developing a solution to address the field of high-quality LiDAR surveying and integrating the best commercially available sensor systems.”
The planned system will collect up to 570 pts/m2with a sensor accuracy of 10mm and a precision of 5mm, significantly outperforming existing solutions in the market. Using a Wingcopter with a high-end LiDAR, customers can scan up to 2,560acres (10.3sqkm) in a single 42-minute BVLOS mission.
One of the first deployments for the surveying products will be Brazil. There, Synerjet, Wingcopter’s authorised local partner, plans to deploy multiple fleets of Wingcopter 198 drones for BVLOS surveys.
Augustinho Simoes, Synerjet’s director of drone operations and development said: “Together with Wingcopter, we are developing custom applications, adding more functionality to the aircraft and meeting requirements from other industries, such as asset inspections, vegetation monitoring and mapping.
“The first version will be equipped with a high-end LiDAR sensor that offers a wide 100-degree field of view and an extremely high pulse repetition rate of up to 2.4 MHz. The measuring beam is emitted consecutively in three different directions: it alternates from strictly nadir to +10 degrees forward, and to -10 degrees backward.”
The news was announced at geospatial technology trade show GEO WEEK in Denver, Colorado, where Wingcopter is currently showcasing its new application.
