Inside Unmanned Systems provides actionable business intelligence to decision-makers and influencers operating within the global UAS community. Features include analysis of key technologies, policy/regulatory developments and new product design.
Issue link: https://insideunmanned.epubxp.com/i/813246
34 unmanned systems inside April/May 2017 AIR SENSORS in future years. "We did an accident recon- struction job and surveyed a mile leading up to it. We manually surveyed it," Fagerman explained. "With this system, a car can drive right up to it—or a UAV can f ly right up to it— and manually survey it. It literally takes one pass to do it." Fagerman also noted some systems sur- vey individual points and can be quite costly. "With [ScanLook Revolution], it's one time down the street and surveyors get all curb and gutter measurements, all the mailboxes, all the fire hydrants," he said. "If someone calls and wants all the utility poles—they already have them." Another emerging UAS survey and mapping market for LiDAR USA is in Africa and South America, where the company has systems in- stalled in Ecuador, Columbia and other coun- tries, Fagerman said. "Government finances are limited and these markets are often labor-intensive and danger- ous. They have nothing in terms of survey right now—they don't know where the railroads cross the roads," he said. "They can get this [survey and mapping] down to the centimeter-level." become a key feature of the latest high-tech products, such as virtual reality (VR), UAVs, and autonomous ground vehicles." Wen, who raised $3 million to help start Tersus, said the BeiDou and Galileo constella- tions bring increased opportunities to improve GNSS' performance. "The Internet of Things (IoT) is creating new demands for low-cost and low-power location trackers," he said. The company, which said RTK survey and mapping can still be expensive for users, re- cently rolled out its Precis-BX316 GNSS RTK board for precise positioning and heading. The board is suitable for UAVs and surveying, but the company believes such new markets as VR and autonomous vehicles will drive the market for RTK. "Emerging applications such as UAS sur- veying and mapping, laser scanning mapping, remote sensing imaging and VR, not only re- quire high precision at the centimeter level, but also operate in moving, kinematic modes. That presents both challenges and new opportuni- ties for us," Wen said. The Tersus Precis-BX305 is a compact GNSS RTK board that offers real-time, centimeter- level positioning as well as f lexible interfaces for such applications, in addition to UASs, as precision navigation, agriculture and surveying, according to Tersus. The unit can be integrated into other host devices, or can serve as an inde- pendent positioning system. The board uses a standard serial port or UHF module for com- munication. In addition, a PicoBlade connector allows it to be integrated with host devices or autopilots. "We have used the Precis-BX305 as a base and rover, with the rover mounted on our [ScanLook Revolution] system," Fagerman said. "Revolution uses the VectorNav VN-300, which has two L1 GPS receivers. By adding the Precis-BX305 onboard, and post processing its results, we can fit the VN-300 trajectory onto the Precis-BX305's trajectory—thereby getting centimeter-level results." " MORE AND MORE PEOPLE HAVE RECOGNIZED THE IMPORTANCE OF PRECISION POSITIONING, AND, HENCE, HAVE FOUND NEW APPLICATIONS FOR GNSS TECHNOLOGY." Xiaohua Wen, founder and CEO, Tersus GNSS High Precision Possibilities But the ScanLook Revolution is not just a sub- meter mobile LiDAR solution. For more high- precision performance, Fagerman has also in- tegrated the Tersus GNSS receiver developed by Tersus, a China-based startup. "More and more people have recognized the importance of precision positioning, and, hence, have found new applications for GNSS technology," said Xiaohua Wen, Tersus GNSS founder and CEO. "Location awareness has