Commercial drone and aerial intelligence provider Kespry wants to give drone operators twice the coverage area with its recently announced drone. The company today announced the Kespry Drone 2.0. The latest version is designed to provide twice the ground coverage, twice the flight time, and twice the wind resilience than the previous drone.
“We have learned a lot from our customer base over the last year and a half, some of which we’ve been able to address with the Kespry Cloud reporting system, but we also needed hardware improvements to the Kespry Drone system to help collect more information faster and better than before,” said Paul Doersch, founder and CEO of Kespry.
The Kespry 2.0 is also lighter than the previous airframe (it weighs less than 2 kg), putting it in the micro UAV category. In addition, the latest version features a new LIDAR-based obstacle avoidance system in order to give operators the ability to fly in congested areas with ease, according to Doersch. The LIDAR sensor has the ability to automatically detect and avoid trees cranes, buildings, and other obstacles.
“The top customer request has been to map more area, especially from larger aggregate customers with multiple large sites, as well as having the drone fly faster and be able to operate in stronger 25 to 35 mph winds. And customers flying in congested environments will appreciate the increased autonomy and safety of our new obstacle avoidance system,” he said.
Doersch said the drone is ideally suited for heavy industrial operations that deal with aggregates, mining, construction and insurance. “Aggregate customers need accurate stockpile inventory measurement and mine planning tools. Insurance customers need high-resolution inspection data for underwriting and claims. Construction customers need up-to-date reporting to better track progress and manage resources to keep projects on schedule and under budget,” he said.
Industrial operators will also benefit from the drone’s customized Sony camera designed to provide more geospatial data. “We’ve seen increased demand from technology partners like Kespry in the drone and robotics markets,” commented John Monti, director of visual imaging solutions at Sony Electronics. “The new lightweight Sony UMC-R10C is designed specifically for industrial applications leveraging low weight while maintaining high-quality image capture.”
