Aerial Imaging Technologies

09/02/2025

https://wing.com/news/eaa-airventure-2025

Wing offers drone delivery. Our fleet of lightweight, autonomous delivery drones can transport small packages directly from businesses to homes in minutes. Wing delivery is safe, sustainable, and easy to integrate with existing delivery approaches.

01/07/2022

For the First Time in Medical History: Autonomous Drone Saves Heart Attack Patient, Delivering Defibrillator. Follow the link below for full details.

For the first time in medical history, an autonomous drone delivers defibrillator and is able to save the life of a heart attack patient.

03/20/2021

Students in the a rural Wisconsin school district will soon be getting access to the internet by drone.

Any student in the district who doesn’t have a reliable internet connection at home will be able to tap into the program, significantly expanding connectivity throughout the district.

The internet-by-drone program will be paid for through a grant of $100,000 awarded by the state of Wisconsin to the school district, so that it can test ways to expand internet access in rural areas.

The drones used in the program will be provided by a drone based integration company which will create a school network that students can tap into from home through a drone-powered cellular signal.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
In order to use drones to bring the internet to students, the drone integration company will outfit each drone so that they essentially become flying cellphone towers.

The drones can then boost cell signals in the surrounding area, making signals strong enough for students to establish reliable connections that aren’t possible with existing infrastructure.

Keeping the drones in the air for long periods of time is crucial to making this approach to connectivity work.

According to the company these tethered drones are capable of staying in the air up to 42 days.

These long flight times require a lot of energy, and are only possible through the use of power cord tethers, which connect the drone to a ground-based generator.

Using a tether, a drone can stay in the air even through harsh weather, providing a strong, reliable signal the whole time.

In the event of power loss—say, if the tether is disconnected for some reason—the drones are programmed to switch to a backup battery and land automatically, avoiding the danger that could be presented if one of these huge machines were to fall suddenly from the sky.

11/09/2019

DJI Updates Mapping & Surveying Solutions for the Phantom 4 RTK + GS RTK v2.2

Phantom 4s are not always easy to find on the DJI store these days, including the RTK model launched toward the end of 2018.

But a revamped version is set to be made available, which features updates to provide more intuitive controls and give users more flexibility in mission ex*****on. The updates to DJI’s Phantom 4 RTK include:

● A new Cloud PPK Service, which enables image uploads and PPK corrections right in the GS RTK app.

● The ability to break large areas into multiple flight missions automatically using the Block Segmentation feature, improving the efficiency in mission planning and final map accuracy.

● A new tool called Absolute Altitude Flight, which ensures mission repeatability and consistency across different operators.

● By using the D-RTK 2 High Precision GNSS Mobile Station as an RTK rover, users can now enjoy more flexibility in mission planning and ex*****on.

“The product improvements we are introducing at InterGeo are significant steps to solidifying DJI’s role as a provider of a next-generation geospatial data collection platform – an essential tool and an integral driver of growth for countless service providers and solution developers,” said Dr. Barbara Stelzner, Director, Marketing and Corporate Communication, DJI Europe.

10/08/2019

Reducing Costs with BVLOS Flight — A Case Study

How much money can be saved using BVLOS operations?

Let’s take the electric utilities industry as an example. In their field, high tension power lines must be inspected on a regular basis. Until now, this has typically been done using manned helicopters. Requirements and methodologies vary, but the cost range to do so is roughly $40-$700 per mile.

In most cases, utilities operating drones BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight) would spend roughly $10-$25 per mile of inspection.

So, a company that must inspect 10,000 miles of power lines a year would save $1.7 million in the first year of operation — a savings of nearly $9 million dollars over the course of 5 years.

05/27/2019

New research seeks to improve the effectiveness of unmanned aerial vehicles in search and rescue operations.

The U.S. National Park Service documented almost 3,500 search and rescue missions in 2017 alone. And speed is essential when someone goes missing, so search coordinators tend to throw in every tool at their disposal: volunteers, scent-trained dogs, horses and vehicles of all kinds often pour into the area.

Drones may seem like an obvious way to save precious time and resource. Now, with the summer outdoor season fast approaching, researchers at Virginia Tech (supported by a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation) are developing algorithms and machine learning tools to better utilize these eyes in the sky.

First, there is the matter of where a drone should start looking. To find ways to narrow this down, Nicole Abaid, an assistant professor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics, used algorithms to develop a mathematical model of what humans do in such situations. “Someone with dementia, when they're lost, will behave significantly differently than like a child or a despondent person,” Abaid says.

For data to feed the algorithms she turned to search theory researcher Robert J. Koester, who says he has used information from more than 140,000 search and rescue incident reports for his 2008 book Lost Person Behavior, which he regularly updates. Before becoming a consultant on the new project, he had already created a set of predictive tools to help coordinators narrow their search parameters. “I've been able to create models that potentially predict what the missing person is going to do,” Koester says. Abaid incorporated his historical data into her own mathematical model. “The model generates a trajectory, like a path that we think the lost person would take,” Abaid explains.

This model could help guide a search and rescue operation, says research team leader Ryan Williams, an assistant professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering within Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering. “If we have an idea of where this person started, and when they were last seen, we can better predict where they may have gone and deploy drones and people to better cover those areas,” Williams says. “We can generate meaningful maps that human searchers can use for much better decisions at the beginning of the search.”

Below, the Weber County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue teams wait for drones to complete an initial field survey during a field training exercise in Ogden, UT. Search operations often use multiple resources including drones, K9 assets, and ground searchers. Credit: Sheri Trbovich Weber County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue

04/30/2019

N.C. hospital delivering blood with drones in pioneering medical program.

The first-ever medical drone delivery program to be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration has taken flight at a North Carolina hospital in a pioneering use of the devices in the healthcare field.

The flights are conducted through a collaboration with United Parcel Service and California-based drone manufacturer Matternet and is overseen by the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the FAA's Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Pilot Program.

A small, white drone last month began delivering samples, including blood, between Raleigh's WakeMed Hospital surgical center and the primary testing lab at its main campus. In the following weeks, the supplies made daily flights that professionals hope will eventually transport life-saving products like blood to more rural locations.

Follow this link for the full story: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/04/24/NC-hospital-delivering-blood-with-drones-in-pioneering-medical-program/9951555887212/

04/30/2019

Hawaiian flower, thought extinct, rediscovered by a drone.

Researchers dispatched a drone into the Hawaiian skies to observe an extremely biodiverse area on a remote part of Kauai's Kalalau Valley. The scientists soon realized they had rediscovered a flower species that was thought to be extinct.

According to a statement from the National Tropical Botanical Garden, Hibiscadelphus woodii was discovered on a vertical cliff face. Most sections of this area of the valley are inaccessible to humans because of the steep landscape.

NTBG has been using drone technology for the past two and a half years to get a look at the unique flora.

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2019/04/19/breaking-news/kauai-researchers-rediscover-native-hawaiian-flower-once-thought-extinct/

04/29/2019

Lifesaving Deliveries by Drone.

Zipline Launches World’s Largest Drone Delivery Network in Ghana, Will Service 12 Million People

Zipline just announced the launch of the largest drone delivery network in the world.

The deliveries will take place in Ghana, where 148 different vaccines, blood products, and life-saving medications will now be available on-demand via drone delivery.

The delivery network will be active 24 hours a day, seven days a week, making drone deliveries to 2,000 health facilities, which serve some twelve million people throughout the country.

Deliveries will be made from four distribution centers, each of which will have 30 drones. Each center has the capacity to make 500 delivery flights a day. Zipline estimates that actual daily delivery counts could be as high as 600 in total.

This launch has been timed to coincide with World Immunization Week, and was celebrated yesterday at an inaugural ceremony in the Ghanian city of Omenako, where the first four drone distribution centers in the country are located.

https://flyzipline.com/

03/26/2019

Drones have the potential to help save lives when it comes to fighting wildfires.

A Georgia State University researcher is using drones to help give people more time to evacuate. The drones in the sky are collecting real-time information that can also help firefighters on the ground contain wildfires.

California suffered its most deadly wildfire on record. The Camp Fire killed 86 people and destroyed nearly 14,000 homes.

“It’s devastating to lose everything. You just can’t prepare for something like this,” said California homeowner Terri Kutras in August 2018.

Georgia State University Associate Professor Xiaolin Hu, Ph.D. and his colleagues received a $1.2 million federal grant to use drones to fight wildfires. The drones fly about 50 to 100 meters above ground. They are equipped with GPS, a fire sensing camera and sensors to collect two types of information.

“The fire data, like the location of the fire, and location of the fire front. The second type of data is called wind data, including wind speed and direction,” said Hu.

Using information collected by the drones, a computer simulation model helps predict how the fire will spread.
“They can see in real-time the kind of location of the fire, the fire front and they can also see how the fire is going to spread in the near term maybe 30 minutes ahead,” said Hu.

Firefighters would receive that information on hand-held devices to help decide where to move firefighting resources. They would also use it to warn people in the fire’s path to evacuate. “For example, if the fire is spreading in your direction, it’s going to reach you in certain minutes,” said Hu.

Wildfires are an issue in Georgia. A wildfire scorched more than 28,000 acres in the Cohutta Wilderness Area in Fannin County in 2016. Wildfires frequently occur in the Okefenokee Swamp Area in South Georgia.

The Georgia Forestry Commission detects fires and helps fight them. It currently has one drone but is developing a strategy on how to use them to fight wildfires. The agency uses airplanes and helicopters. It is very interested in GSU’s research.

“I think it’s a great idea if the technology proves itself viable. I think it’s the next step for wildland firefighting,” said Clay Chatham who heads the Georgia Forestry Commission’s aviation program.

03/21/2019

How Drones Are Supporting Mountain Rescue Teams

We all know by now that drones can gather data quickly and effectively. They can carry out tasks in ways that remove the need to put humans in danger. They are cheaper and more versatile than manned aircraft. And best of all, they are empowering emergency teams and helping to save lives around the world.

A Life-saving Perspective

Mountainous environments are often unforgiving, hazardous and difficult to navigate. All of which makes searching for missing people a difficult challenge.

Unless a team on the ground knows exactly where to look, precious time will be spent on an often slow and methodical sweep of a general area. During that time, conditions can deteriorate and injured survivors are increasingly exposed to the elements and at risk.

Unless survivors are fortunate (or smart) enough to be wearing distinctive clothing, spotting them at ground level from a distance is another challenge. Drones offer an aerial perspective that makes it easier to sweep areas and spot people from above. That also provides the ability to rule out certain locations quickly; a factor that can’t be understated.

Search and Rescue teams on the ground can call out, listen and respond to cries for help. But they have to be in the vicinity first; drones can help make that happen.

Rapid Deployment and Mobility

As mentioned above, the unforgiving terrain is a major challenge for any SAR operation in a mountainous area. It’s often the reason that a rescue mission is required in the first place.

Although not as quick or as useful for evacuations as helicopters, drones provide SAR teams with a versatile tool that can be deployed at a moment’s notice for a fraction of the price.

With a few spare batteries and multiple drones, the technology also offers a degree of persistence that you wouldn’t otherwise get with manned aircraft.

When you’re working around the clock in a race against time, being able to commit to searches with aerial support at the touch of a button can make a huge difference.

Supporting and Protecting Ground Teams

SAR teams are made up of brave men and women putting themselves on the line to save the lives of others.

Drone technology offers a tool that SAR teams can use to minimize the risk rescuers face, plotting safe routes through challenging terrain and sometimes removing the need for exploratory searches entirely.

When conditions are hazardous, any time that rescue teams spend rescuing rather than searching is valuable.

From an operational standpoint, drones can provide aerial intelligence that helps rescue teams find missing people faster. But it’s also about preparation. Knowing what’s around the corner and, where possible, what state any survivors are in can help SAR teams arrive on the scene with the right equipment to assist immediately.

Versatile Accessories

Part of that process is the development of accessories that, when placed in the hands of SAR teams, can speed up searches, direct teams on the ground and improve operational safety.

For example, the new DJI drones can be flown with a range of situational payloads, including a 2,400 lumens spotlight for search and rescue at night, a strobe beacon designed to make sure the drone is visible, and a 100-decibel loudspeaker to communicate with people on the ground during missions.

But the most useful SAR accessories are arguably the latest generation of portable thermal cameras.

For operations at night, new SAR equipped drones now offers a side-by-side 4K sensor and FLIR thermal micro-camera. These drones offer greater image quality and can be flown with DJI’s enterprise range.

Earlier this year the Department of Transport announced new rule proposals that could remove many of the regulatory hurdles preventing first responders from flying at night.

The move could open the way for search and rescue teams to use drones and thermal imaging to help save more lives each year.

From an article by Malek Murison

03/19/2019

Bipartisan law pushes use of drones for fighting wildfires.

Mar 12, 2019 | FEDSCOOP

President Trump signed a bipartisan bill into law Tuesday that pushes federal agencies to explore increased use of drones in managing and fighting wildfires.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the signing of the bill into law.

Among many other things, the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act directs the secretary of the Department of the Interior to set up or expand a “research, development, and testing program” to examine the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS, or drones) “across the full range of wildland fire management operations.” Now that the bill is law, Interior will have just six months to get the program up and running.

The goal of the program is to “develop consistent protocols and plans for the use on wildland fires of unmanned aircraft system technologies, including for the development of real-time maps of the location of wildland fires.” To do this, DOI and the U.S. Department of Agriculture will need to collaborate with the Federal Aviation Administration, given its oversight of the national airspace, and with state-level fire agencies on their needs and requirements.

Per Tara Stearman, a senior unmanned systems analyst at PropelUAS, the bill is “a really exciting opportunity.” Specifically, she told FedScoop, it represents the first mandated inter-agency collaboration on drones, and she’s excited to see what the combination of USDA wildfire expertise and DOI’s excitement about using drones will yield. Firefighting is a particularly high-impact use case too, she said. “This can serve the entire country.”

However, she warned that six months is a “short period of time” in which to set up a true inter-agency collaboration. DOI and USDA will need to keep very “clear lines of communication” for the opportunity to meet its full potential.

The drone testing program isn’t the only tech modernization initiative included in the bill. The legislation also directs the secretaries of USDA and DOI, with the help of state firefighting agencies, to “develop and operate a tracking system to remotely locate the positions of fire resources.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the signing of the bill into law. President Trump signed a bipartisan bill into law Tuesday that pushes federal agencies to explore increased use of drones in managing and fighting wildfires. Among many other things, the John D. Dingell, Jr. Co...