News

Our experience with HORUS^® and the modifications we made to the model have led us to push the development further and relase a new generation: the HORUS^® 2.0.

The new frame of HORUS^® 2.0 is even more sturdy, more robust, and offers even more space. The new casing is larger and now contains a high-performance transmitter for broadcasting the live video signal in addition to the control electronics. This way, all sensitive components are housed safely within the casing and protected from rain.

HORUS^® 2.0 has been available for purchase since the beginning of the year.

The young Airclip.de team offers the research drone in three different varieties:

• as a quadrocopter
• as an octocopter and
• as  a dodecacopter.

In addition, Airclip also offers diverse services in the field of data acquisition from the air. To learn more, plase visit:

www.airclip.de

Disaster situations, such as floods or larger accidents, frequently affect several different states at the same time, often causing a need for the relief forces of these states to cooperate. The last incident of this kind was the so-called »flood of the century« that hit the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany in 2002. Due to language barriers and differing data and protocol standards, it is often very difficult to coordinate the available forces efficiently.

This is the point where the IDIRA project comes in. 18 partners from 7 different European states work together in an EU-funded project in order to develop common standards. Last Thursday, a project meeting was held in Dresden on the premises of the German Red Cross (DRK), during which all partners' sub-systems were merged together for the first time and tested in conjunction. HORUS^® also played a part in the meeting by functioning as a flying sensor node in a presentation. The live data it transmitted to the ground were used for improved decision support during the relief staff deployment planning.  

Movie clip filmed during the drone's operation in Dresden.

June 30, 2012

This weekend, the area surrounding the Schumann Building and the Zeuner Building was overflown in cooperation with the Institut für Photogrammetrie und Fernerkundung (IFP, Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing). For this purpose, a thermal imaging module was mounted on the HORUS^®. The first flight started at 7 a.m. About half an hour later, the copter had comleted its job. The entire area was overflown using a meandering pattern and filmed with a calibrated infrared camera. The photographic material was then pieced together to form a large map, and later equalized and further processed. Because the temperature varies greatly over the course of a day, the flight was repeated twice with the same grid; once at 2 p.m. and once at 9 p.m. This way, a large amount of data was collected representing the temperature profile of an entire day.

June 26, 2012

Although the acquisition of aerial images is a standard operation for drones, it is quite special to fly over dead bodies. In this concrete case, it was not the police but Saxony's State Office of Archaeology who were interested in the bones. They were found on an excavation site in the center of Freiberg, where the foundation walls of the Dominican monastery St. Pauli were discovered. At the moment, the team is working to uncover the tombs located in the cloister of the monastery and the church's choir. It was HORUS'^® task to document the excavation work by taking aerial pictures.  

Of course, a drone pilot always hopes for good weather and no wind. Unfortunately, the conditions were not that favorable. This was also a problem for the archaeologists because the whole area was moist and about to sink into mud. Luckily, they were spared further squalls, and the strong wind helped to dry the excavation site.

Wind is an obvious problem for a flying object that weighs less than 5 kg, especially in the form of strong gusts and air turbulence that occurred in between Freiberg's larger houses. Therefore, it was necessary to act with the greatest care and always keep a safe distance from the surrounding walls. But there was no reason to hurry, and so the desired images and some video footage was taken within three hours on site.