Images courtesy of SkyGrid
Industry: Unmanned Aviation, Blockchain, AI
Location: Austin, Texas
As drone technology advances, its applications are evolving rapidly across the globe. Drones are delivering test kits and disinfecting outdoor surfaces to help fight COVID-19. They’re assessing hurricane damage and delivering aid to affected areas. And they’re surveying oil pipelines to inspect damage and prevent leaks.
From retail and logistics to healthcare and energy, drones are disrupting a wide variety of industries and upending outdated business models. Even with all this progress, drone operations remain complex and challenging. The burden falls on drone operators to manually plan, execute, and adapt their flights in the rapidly changing airspace. They’re expected to monitor weather changes, avoid buildings and construction cranes, navigate around roadway traffic, and comply with shifting regulatory dynamics.
But this approach isn’t scalable. As an organization’s fleet grows, it’s not feasible to manually plan and execute every flight that’s delivering a package, conducting an inspection, or responding to an emergency. Automation is critical to safely scale drone operations and enable more advanced missions.
SkyGrid is addressing this challenge with a smarter drone solution that automates every phase of flight.
SkyGrid Flight ControlTM makes it easy for drone operators to explore the airspace, automate flights, and get real-time insights. We eliminate manual workflows by automating drone flight planning and autonomously executing the mission.
Here’s how it works:
1. Check airspace conditions
SkyGrid Flight Control provides detailed airspace, regulatory, and location data to help drone operators make more informed flight decisions. Our airspace intelligence includes advanced weather data, such as precipitation, wind speed and direction, cloud cover, visibility, and more. Our regulatory data includes airspace classes and advisories from the FAA, such as UAS flight restrictions. And our location insights include local buildings, obstacles, population density, elevation, and roadway traffic.
Images courtesy of SkyGrid
2. Generate a flight plan
SkyGrid Flight Control provides detailed airspace, regulatory, and location data to help drone operators make more informed flight decisions. Our airspace intelligence includes advanced weather data, such as precipitation, wind speed and direction, cloud cover, visibility, and more. Our regulatory data includes airspace classes and advisories from the FAA, such as UAS flight restrictions. And our location insights include local buildings, obstacles, population density, elevation, and roadway traffic.
Images courtesy of SkyGrid
3. Get flight authorization
As a trusted supplier of the FAA’s Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC), SkyGrid provides real-time flight authorization in U.S. controlled airspace under 400 feet. We simplify compliance by integrating LAANC directly into the flight planning workflow. That means drone operators can seamlessly plan their mission, ensure their flight meets all FAA requirements, and get auto-approval to fly.
Images courtesy of SkyGrid
4. Autonomously execute your flight
Once the flight plan is generated and authorized, operators can connect their drone to autonomously execute the pre-defined flight plan. With a Part 107 Waiver, SkyGrid Flight Control can also support multi-drone missions by optimizing the distribution of multiple drones over a defined area based on a defined timeframe or fleet size. Our live video feed allows operators to monitor each flight simultaneously and pause missions as needed.
5. Detect objects in real-time
During flight, drone operators can also detect key objects, such as vehicles, people, and animals, with our AI computer vision. This technology can be a powerful tool to quickly gain situational awareness after a traffic incident, identify potential threats near critical infrastructure, or detect defects in an oil and gas pipeline. Based on the needs of the mission, our algorithms can be trained to detect and track customized objects.
Ultimately, we believe in a future where millions of autonomous aircraft of all shapes and sizes will take to the skies to move our goods, improve our agriculture, augment our security, and even provide safe transportation. SkyGrid Flight Control is the first step toward enabling this future.
Images courtesy of SkyGrid
Visit skygrid.com/flight-control to learn more.
