Advancements with drones are making the charging process easier.
Who needs humans? Not drones, it seems, which are quickly evolving from relying on an operator to coordinate direction and recharging, to being completely self-sufficient.
Imagine your special drone waking up, charging up and automatically exiting its droneport to take a look-see around the property. Imagine no more, says Andrea Puiatti, CEO of Skysense, a Qualcomm-backed company that is delivering automated drone charging pads, autonomous durable shelters (droneports) for the flying robot, and a cloud-based networking management application that can pre-program flight schedules, communicate real-time status information and stream live video.
The Skysense technology has primarily been used by NASA, the CIA and other government agencies, but just last year the company introduced it into agricultural, oil and gas, and the logistics markets.
“Drones are already making headlines about how they can dramatically cut costs for one-off inspections, and now Skysense is enabling a new wave of revolutionary long-term applications,” Puiatti said. Long-term applications such as continuous security patrols, monitoring infrastructure, or regularly surveying crops—all with minimal human intervention through direct contact automatic charging technology and deployment software services.
“Users can automate the operation of a single drone or scale up their applications to form a large fleet,” Puiatti. “Once set up, a fleet can run 24/7 through the night and weekends, or wait there always ready for deployment.”
Or, as I understand it, wait there until the FAA says commercial drones can fly without an operator or in swarms…which is still under debate.
