Amazing product from H3 Dynamics in Singapore. We've always dreamed of drones that could be deployed like sprinkler systems -- place and forget, and they just do their job, sending data to the cloud. Looks like we're almost there.
From Gizmag:
The proliferation of drones for a multitude of tasks has led to improved autonomy, and reduced the level of human intervention. On the flip side, however, people are still needed to physically wrangle drones to a site whenever they are required, and much time and expense is spent deploying them. To help reduce this burden, the new Dronebox nesting platform has been created to provide 24/7 autonomous capabilities to drones. It provides an automated recharging and storage station that can be left on site so a dedicated Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) can be deployed on-call or routinely for many months at a time.
Touted by the makers as an all-inclusive, self-powered system that can be deployed anywhere, the Dronebox designed as a UAV solution to follow on from the likes of remote monitors and camera systems used today. As such, the creators envisage the replacement of these fixed monitoring methods with deploy-on-demand or programmed-cycle UAVs to provide a more flexible and intuitive way to keep an eye on things.
With batteries automatically charged within its shelter system using solar panels, the Dronebox can also be upgraded using a product known as Remobox to provide a small back-up fuel cell system to extend remote deployment for a year or more. The Remobox also provides add-on communications features and environmental monitoring to ensure a nested drone is operating in optimal conditions.
Dronebox also provides the ability to link drones and Droneboxes in a similar fashion to the Internet of Things (IoT), where varied and disparate devices are interconnected to collect and exchange data. In this way, arrays of wirelessly linked Droneboxes and their associated UAVs operate through a central hub, where all of their sensors are channeled through a unified analytics system to create what the makers call a "sensor fabric" that provides real-time, overall situational awareness of everything under surveillance.
As a connected network, Dronebox's effectiveness using collaborative technologies means that a UAV nested and deployed automatically could also offer a line of first response in forest fires, chemical spills, earthquakes, and other disasters before humans arrive. With multiple sets of drones monitoring all aspects of a catastrophe via the previously mentioned sensor fabric, the situation could be assessed and actions planned and resourced well ahead of any response, thereby saving what could amount to many critical hours of time on the ground for rescue teams, firefighters, and disaster recovery personnel.
The creators of Dronebox also believe that mobile sensors hosted in networked Droneboxes could help transform border and perimeter security, wildlife protection, critical infrastructure maintenance, telecommunications tower and wind turbine maintenance, oil and gas asset inspection, and precision agriculture.
On display for the first time at the Singapore Air Show this month, Droneboxes, Remoboxes, and their supporting technologies are slated for launch in the commercial marketplace some time within the next six months.
Comments
@Diamond: newer drones such as Solo have smart batteries that do internal balancing during charging.
Very cool concept. Would you be able to balance LiPo's using this kind of charging pad?
I think a lot of what H3 Dynamics is selling in this video is hype. There appears to be no demonstration of moving energy from fuel cells or solar panels into the drone, and their Iris seems to be unmodified (except for the IR-Lock beacon). Still, I think their overall concept is something a different companies are looking at.
The tethered fixed solution is simply useless: a pole with sensors on top is a much practical and cheaper solution with almost same performance and none of the drawbacks. The availability is still way better.
Anyway the dependability of this is still very very far from being a valid alternative to traditional solutions.
Considering they also do a fuecell box and offer a fuelcell quad, an assumption would be a robot arm of some type to facilitate "refueling" once the drone is tucked away into the hangar space at the top of the box. There's also nothing stopping precision landing being assisted from the box. The idea of a drop and forget drone hangar that can deploy surveillance on demand via IoT comm relay is nothing to sneeze at. Public safety network using predeployed drone "nests" as both comm relay nodes and recharge stations is an interesting use case, and functionally not that far from some past MatterNet roof hangar proposals to provide long range relay "Pony Express" delivery services. Sticking a drone nest on celltower support boxes is another predeployment mechanism as well. Placement on firewatch towers for forest services to dispatch drones to check out smoke or IR hits on a tower thermal camera is another public safety use. Rooftop or backyard drone nests as a federated network would also be interesting (in the vein of FON wifi services).
IRIS+ is amazingly adaptable. Shame 3DR is discontinuing it.
So cool, it must be inductive charging then? I think they should make the landing platform a bit bigger though, even with precision landing it might get blown off by a tiny puff of wind at the last second during landing if it's that small.
it's good that they get the power from the panels into the box... but unless there's wireless charging capabilities squeezed into the drone that I can't see, it's not going to get charged by itself. :-)
To add on to Randy's point regarding APM, the 'precision land-on-box' is a bit tricky because the landing altitude is offset from the ground, which directly affects the target offset calculation. This degrades the controls performance.
But there are various tools available: we suggest a laser rangefinder in the docs. Or, a wide-angle sonar is typically a better match for the box landing. Or, better yet, fuse barometer data w/ a rangefinder. :)
oh noes! an unsupported iris+ hope they don't crash and need new parts.... ruin the whole project
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