Inspection

Night flights and beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations are coming and DJI is preparing the ground. Today the Chinese manufacturer launched an upgrade to their most popular enterprise drone and improvements to FlightHub, the company’s operation management platform. The Matrice 200 series is getting a serious revamp (and …

Australian transport infrastructure company Transurban has released a video outlining how their drone fleet is supporting construction, maintenance and inspection operations. Transurban operates infrastructure in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, as well as roads in North America, in Montreal and Greater Washington. The company’s maintenance teams have been using drones to …

Belgium-based Unifly is one of Europe’s leading unmanned traffic management (UTM) providers, and has been at the forefront of developing UTM systems globally.  As the UTM market continues to grow, CEO Marc Kegelaers gives DRONELIFE readers his take on Unifly,  the relationship to Terra Drone India and their recent announcement, and …

Japanese drone provider Terra Drone Corporation and Brazilian company Plimsoll UAV last week announced a joint venture called Terra Drone Brazil. Terra Drone specializes in commercial drone hardware, software and UTM. The company focuses on the mining, construction, energy generation, oil and gas sectors, using UAS-based LiDAR and photogrammetry surveying solutions. Plimsoll focuses …

Autonomous drone company Apollo Robotics is launching an early-bird program allowing professional drone industry players to pre-order new products. The Ventura, Calif.-based firm has launched the Apollo Development Partner Program which will give early access to fully automated, autonomous surveying drone platforms to qualified professionals. The Apollo system combines multi-sensor …

Guest post by leading drone industry analyst Colin Snow of Skylogic Research. This was a big year for the commercial drone industry as a whole. It saw a significant increase in the business adoption, the expansion of the FAA’s LAANC program (the Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability that provides …

A major name in sports brings his business savvy to the skies with Avisight. When my 17-year-old son heard that I was going to interview J.B. Bernstein, his first thought was that I had gotten the name wrong (surely his mother couldn’t speak to anyone that cool.) His second thought …

Japanese UAV player Terra Drone Corporation is expanding its global reach after the Tokyo-based company bought a major stake in Australian firm C4D Intel. Terra Drone specializes in commercial drone hardware, software and UTM. The company focuses on the mining, construction, energy generation, oil and gas sectors, using UAV-based LiDAR …

Not that long ago military bodies were racing to distance themselves from drone industry leader DJI. The US Army grounded its use of DJI products in a move that was probably justified at the time. The Australian Defence Force quickly followed suit. It looked as though DJI’s days as an equipment …

A Singapore-based company has launched a new hydrogen-based drone designed for large-scale, industrial maintenance inspections. HES Energy Systems this week released Hycopter, a multi-rotor system that can keep precision cameras and other sensors in the air for much longer, opening up new commercial possibilities while reducing operational costs. Designed at …