4gdronecontrol

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How Enterprises Can Build and Scale Enterprise Drone Applications Using FlytNow APIs

At FlytBase, we believe that the commercial drone industry is heading towards complete automation. This transition calls for seamless integration with different software & hardware. We are cognizant of this ever-growing need for scalable enterprise applications that involve drones. With this global opportunity in mind, we built the FlytCloud ecosystem that powers our FlytNow cloud-connected application.

We are proud to announce that we are extending the capabilities of FlytNow as a comprehensive backend platform for enterprise drone ops. We introduce FlytNow APIs to securely connect drones with any type of business application that supports RESTful architecture. This means that businesses can rapidly build and scale custom drone applications to manage their drone fleet.

Some benefits of using FlytNow APIs

Simple: Our APIs are simple with clearly defined endpoints to perform specific functions.

Powerful Abstractions: Our APIs provide powerful abstractions so developers do not have to deal with lower-level languages to communicate with drones.

Agnostic: Whether it is a DJI, PX4 or ArduPilot drone, FlytNow APIs are agnostic and have the necessary adapters to communicate with the hardware.

Discoverable: Our API endpoints are logically organized in extensive documentation so that even junior developers can get up to speed quickly with the capabilities.

Consistent: All our API endpoints are constructed logically so that developers can anticipate different functionalities.

Virtual Drones: As the name implies, these are simulated drones in a virtual environment. Work on simulations to test your applications faster without risking expensive hardware.

Scalability: Our cloud services are hosted on Amazon AWS, and it is adaptive making it possible to deploy resources as you grow your business.

APIs that are currently available for our enterprise users

Navigation APIs: Control drones remotely from a dashboard.

Telemetry APIs: Fetch telemetry data like speed, altitude, global position, etc. from a drone.

Payload APIs: Control & integrate various payloads with FlytNow.

Video Streaming APIs: Access live video streaming from a drone. Share this stream with your team and guests for collaboration.

Vehicle Setup APIs: Perform a series of checks on the operational capabilities of a drone.

Gimbal Control APIs: Remotely control the gimbal pitch of a drone.

Camera Zoom APIs: Change the orientation of the camera and the zoom remotely.

Command & Control APIs: Control drone operation from a unified dashboard or any other platform.

Mission Planning APIs: Set a pre-programmed mission/path for a drone.

Precision Landing APIs: Land drones precisely on a machine-generated tag.

Collision Avoidance APIs: Integrate collision sensor data with FlytNow dashboard. Define thresholds and create paths to plan your way around obstacles.

Drone-in-a-box API: Integrate with Drone-in-a-Box hardware. Command drone launches and landings remotely. Moreover, you can retrieve charging (or battery swapping) & docking station statuses.

Geofence APIs: Set a virtual boundary for drones and trigger fail safes in case of breaches.

What enterprise users can build using our Drone APIs

Drone-based security and surveillance system:

Security systems can be enhanced using drones. A custom enterprise web-app can be integrated with CCTV cameras & software (for example Milestone), motion sensors, and ground-based hardware using FlytNow APIs. Further, businesses can leverage these APIs for mission planning to automate the patrolling of drones, thereby reducing the need for redundant manpower. Automation need not be limited to just spontaneous patrolling; schedule regular security patrols using APIs for DiaB (Drone-in-a-Box). Absolute autonomy lies in eliminating human interference starting from time-defined missions where the drone takes off, performs the mission and docks back into the box to charge/swap batteries. In real-life, the system will leverage a unified dashboard as a command center and our live video streaming APIs to manage the entire operation. In the event of an intrusion, it will operate in the following way:

An intrusion alert goes off in the main dashboard. The human operator initiates a drone recon.

The system creates a mission for the drone. A drone automatically launches from a DiaB station and goes to the point of interest.

The drone begins live-streaming, and the human operator identifies the intruder from the live drone footage. The operator uses the payload APIs of FlytNow to maneuver the camera.

On completion of the mission, the drone automatically returns back to the docking station.

Drones-based medical delivery system:

Companies have been actively building & deploying drone systems that can deliver critical medical payloads to remote locations. A US-based company called Zipline is one such company that has extensive operations in the African nations of Ghana and Rwanda. They rely on a centralized system where they operate from a medical warehouse and all incoming requests for blood are fulfilled via drone delivery. The highlights of the system are that the drones can fly autonomously from the warehouse to the delivery point, drop the payload, and return back to the base. Following are some APIs of FlytNow can be used to build a similar system:

Mission Planning APIs: To set the route of a drone to the delivery location.

Navigation APIs: To take control of a delivery drone remotely in case of an emergency.

Vehicle Setup APIs: To run a diagnostic of a drone before sending it off to a mission.

Video Streaming APIs: To remotely monitor a delivery mission through a video feed.

Geofence APIs: To restrict the area of operation of the drones.

Command & Control APIs: To track the drones in real time on a map.

Collision Avoidance APIs: To make the drone intelligent enough to fly around obstacles.

Payload API: To control the release of the payload.

Drone-based emergency response system:

Leveraging the FlytNow APIs, a response system can be built that is fully autonomous and integrated with a Computer Aided Dispatch system like 911. In the event of an emergency, an operator using such a system can dispatch a drone to survey the situation. On receiving the command, a drone will launch and fly to the location autonomously and begin acquiring data using its onboard camera. The operator can share the live feed of the drone with the first responders who can plan a better response.

The APIs used in this case would be similar to the delivery system mentioned above, with a focus on BVLOS capabilities and live-stream of data.

Summary

In this blog, we introduced the APIs of the FlytNow platform and the benefits of using them. In a nutshell, FlytNow is built for developers building applications to manage enterprise drone operations with BVLOS capabilities. Our extensive and reliable set of APIs is a result of our experience working with commercial drones for almost a decade.

The post How Enterprises Can Build and Scale Enterprise Drone Applications Using FlytNow APIs appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/scale-drone-applications/

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6 Reasons to Use FlytNow to Automate Drones for Perimeter Security

The threat from physical intrusion still remains one of the top concerns in both commercial and non-commercial contexts. According to a report from Markets and Markets, the video surveillance market, which includes both hardware and software, is presently at USD 45.5 billion and expected to reach USD 74.6 billion by 2025.

Over the years, there have been many advancements in optics and detection systems but limitations still exist in the conventional ways of using them. To overcome these limitations, security stakeholders are now incorporating drone technology in their operations.

In this blog, we will talk about drones and the FlytNow solution for perimeter security.

What is perimeter security?

Perimeter security is an active barrier or fortification around a defined area to prevent all forms of intrusion. Modern security systems are an amalgamation of sophisticated hardware and software that generally include cameras, motion sensors, electric fencing, high-intensity lights, and a command center to manage them all. 

Challenges with conventional security systems (without drones) for perimeter security

Below are some of the drawbacks and limitations that are inherent in a conventional security system:

CCTV cameras and motion detectors are stationary, thus leaving plenty of room for blind spots.

Patrolling requires human guards – for larger areas, this is the least efficient way of securing a premise.

Response to an intrusion is delayed since a human responder has to reach the location.

Benefits of using drones for perimeter security

Drones have the following advantages over a conventional security system:

Drones are mobile flying machines that can go to any location quickly, with HD camera(s), thus eliminating blind spots.

Drones can also be equipped with a thermal camera(s) which are useful during nighttime surveillance.

Drones can be automated for patrolling using the FlytNow cloud-connected solution and commercially available DiaB (Drone in a Box) hardware.

Note: A DiaB is box-like hardware that houses one or more drones. The hardware keeps the drone flight-ready (24×7) and also automates the launching and docking processes of a drone.

Drones automation for security

For perimeter security, drones are generally used in conjunction with Drone-in-a-Box hardware and a fleet management system that powers the command center. Other security system hardware, including CCTV cameras, motion sensors, etc. can complement the drones and can be connected to the command center, thus integrating into a complete system. In a real-life scenario, such a system might work in the following way:

An intrusion is detected by one of the CCTV cameras in an area under surveillance. 

The command center receives the alert and initiates a drone launch. 

A connected DiaB receives the launch request and releases a drone. 

The drone flies to the location where the intrusion was detected and begins streaming a live video feed. 

An operator maneuvers the drone to cover all blind spots.

On finding the intruder, the operator has the option to warn him/her about the transgression using the drone’s onboard payload such as a beacon, spotlight, speaker, etc.

To know about the kind of drones and sensors that can be used for security and surveillance operations please refer to our Drone Surveillance System: The Complete Setup Guide.

How FlytNow enabled perimeter security?

FlytNow is a cloud-based application that helps in managing and controlling a fleet of drones from a unified dashboard through automation, live data streaming and integration. In the context of perimeter security, this translates into a command center that connects drones with the traditional components of a perimeter security system.

6 Reasons to use FlytNow for perimeter security

#1 Easy Setup: FlytNow is cloud-hosted i.e. a user can access the application from any standard web browser, without any complicated server setup. Connecting the drones with the system is also easy and is done using FlytOS.

#2 Unified Dashboard: FlytNow features an advanced dashboard that shows the following:

A live map showing the real-time location of all the drones. The map can be customized to show points of interest, and virtual geofence, and CCTV zones.

On-screen GUI controllers and keyboard & mouse support to control a drone. This allows an operator to easily maneuver a drone to a point of interest from the command center.

Multicam support that allows streaming video feeds from more than one drone.

Different view modes that allow an operator to switch between RGB and thermal mode. In the thermal mode, there is the option to switch between different color pallets, allowing a user to identify warm objects against different backdrops.

Pre-flight checklist which is a list of checks the system prompts an operator to perform before initiating a drone launch.

#3 Live Data Sharing: An operator can share the live video feed from a drone directly from the dashboard. The feature can be used to share video with the police or other remote stakeholders.

#4 Advanced Automation: Operating drones through manual control is quite an inefficient way to use drones. Instead, automation should be employed to perform activities like security patrols. FlytNow comes with an advanced mission planner that allows a user to define a path for a drone to follow and save it as a mission. The mission can be executed periodically, thus making a fleet of drones perform automated patrolling.

#5 Add-on Modules: FlytNow provides add-ons to make a drone intelligent; this includes precision landing over a computer-generated tag, obstacle detection, and object identification. These add-ons enable a drone to autonomously fly to a location, identify a threat, and return to the DiaB hardware.

#6 Drone-in-a-Box Hardware Support: The functions of DiaB hardware, in the context of perimeter security, can be broadly classified into four categories:

Securely house a drone.

Keeping the drone fully charged all the time.

Initiate a drone launch.

Successfully dock a returning drone.

Summary

In this blog, we discussed the concept of perimeter security, the limitations of conventional security set up, and how these limitations can be overcome using drones. Then we covered how drones are actually used for aerial patrols and 6 reasons why FlytNow is an ideal solution for automating drones for perimeter security.

There are plenty more reasons to use FlytNow for perimeter security that you can find out by signing for our 28 days free trial.

The post 6 Reasons to Use FlytNow to Automate Drones for Perimeter Security appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/drones-for-perimeter-security/

[4gdronecontrol]

How Drones are Useful in Forest Fire Response

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are already in use for controlling fires in urban areas and places where people reside. These UAVs are usually quadcopters that are quite effective in hovering in one place.

In the event of a fire, the primary objective of using drones is to gather situational awareness, which can be used to direct the efforts of the firefighters in locating and controlling hot spots.

Just like urban fires, forest fires too require monitoring so that firefighters know what they are dealing with.

Forest fires are different from urban fires; they are hard to control (sometimes cannot be controlled) and pose a greater threat to people and property. Here, drones can play a crucial role in detecting, containing, and extinguishing forest fires.

One example of drones to combat forest fires is that of California National Guards, who are using MQ-9 Reaper (military reconnaissance drones) to assist emergency responders in controlling forest fires. They have already provided crucial assistance in massive forest fires, which include Mendocino Complex Fire and Carr Fire.

Before we dive into how drones are used in this context, it is important to understand why they are used.

Why Drones are Used in Controlling Forest Fires?

In the event of a forest fire, time is of the essence. This is why it makes sense to use a drone for two primary purposes: initial detection and initial rescue. Here is a further breakdown:

Drones can quickly be airborne, fly to a location, map the area affected by the fire, and share the information to all relevant agencies within a couple of minutes.

A drone can carry a whole range of sensors, including a thermal camera that supports multiple color pallets. The combination of all these sensors provides a better picture of the spread and speed of the fire, which can help civil authorities to come up with a relief plan.

How Are Drones Used in Forest Fires?

Drones are useful especially in forest fires that are difficult to control. They are primarily used for collecting information and during post-incident recovery. Their usage can be explained as follows:

Information gathering: During a forest fire it is important for firefighters to know whether they are hitting the hot spots, which is difficult and dangerous for the ground crew since such fires tend to spread over a large area.

Here drones carrying a thermal camera can do the job much more efficiently. A pilot flying a drone can cover a large area and identify hot spots using the thermal camera. Thermal cameras like DJI Zenmuse XT offer multiple color palettes that can precisely identify hot and cold zones giving a better idea of the kind of temperatures the responders are dealing with.

Learn how DEEP (The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection) has been using drones to combat forest fires.

Aid and protection: Fighting any kind of fire is an occupational hazard for firefighters. But forest fires can move in any direction depending on the wind. This means a firefighter on the ground fighting a forest fire without the knowledge of the spread can easily get trapped.

The footage captured by a drone can provide insights about the spread and direction of the fire. This information can protect firefighters from going too close to the inferno.

Terrain Mapping: Footage captured from a drone can be converted into a 3D map allowing civil authorities to ascertain the extent of the damage. This information is useful during post-incident relief work and for insurance companies to verify damage claims.

Real-time Awareness: Any kind of relief work requires resources, and for that situational awareness is required for planning. In 2018, wildfire threatened the town of Hechingen, Germany, which was facing severe drought and the water level dropped below 50%.

The fire department of Hechingen was called in to control the blaze. The fire was close to a remote country road far away from water sources and covered an area close to 5000 square meters. DJI M210 drones, with Zenmuse XT and X4S cameras, were put to the test and flown over the area to gather intelligence. Aerial imagery showed the firefighters the hot spots and the spread of the fire; accordingly, they planned to carry water, in fire engines, to the spot and control the blaze.

Thus, drones played an important role in providing intelligence for decision making.

How FlytNow Enhances the Capabilities of Drones Fighting Forest Fires

FlytNow is a cloud-based fleet management solution that provides a unified dashboard for managing a fleet of drones. The dashboard provides access to drone-mission planning, live telemetry, and video streams from all connected drones over a 4G/LTE/5G network. Below is an illustration of how the solution works.

How Drones are Connected to FlytNow?

FlytNow supports a wide variety of drones including the popular DJI Mavic and Matrice series of drones.

Connecting a DJI drone is extremely simple; download and install the FlytOS mobile app and connect the mobile with the RC of the drone. The mobile application acts as a relay between the drone and the cloud application. Live telemetry and the video feed are sent to the FlytNow cloud server over the mobile network.

Custom drones also work with FlytNow by leveraging a single board computer (SBC). An SBC with the operating system is connected to the flight controller of the drone, which communicates with FlytNow either through Wifi or a GSM module.

Establishing a Localized Command Center Using FlytNow Business

FlytNow Business is a standard offering that comes with out of the box features. This solution is ideal for setting up a localized command center to manage drones working to bring a forest fire under control.

A forest fire can burn for days before it’s brought under control, so it becomes important for fire officials to stay close to the situation and monitor it. Following are the features that would allow firefighters to set up a command center and some ways they can be used:

FlytNow Business can be accessed from a web browser. A firefighter with a laptop or a tablet can log in to the FlytNow dashboard and see the statuses of all connected drones. Like a command center, he/she can manage and control all drones from a single dashboard.

FlytNow Business comes with an advanced mission planner that allows for setting up a flight path for a drone. Using the mission planner, a fire official can program a drone to fly over a defined perimeter and map it in order to understand the spread of the fire.

It can stream live video and telemetry from all connected drones. Using this feature, a fire official can see the video feeds (at ultra-low latency) from all connected drones on the dashboard and even share them with various agencies either via email or using the built-in team management. This would allow for better coordination among different agencies.

The dashboard supports multiple views for different kinds of operations. For example, in a search and rescue operation, an operator can switch to the IR view to detect the heat signature of people trapped by the fire.

In the case of DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual and Matrice 210 V2 Dual, the dashboard supports MSX, which generates high contrast thermal images with lines and edges, and multiple color palettes including isotherms. Using the color palettes, a firefighter can identify hot and cold regions, which can aid in the identification of hot spots.

FlytNow Business can be integrated with cloud servers like AWS S3 for the storage of video captured during firefighting operations. These videos can later be used for training purposes.

Establishing an Automated Drone Based Response System Using FlytNow Enterprise

FlytNow Enterprise is a customizable offering that includes all the features of the Business version plus additional features. It can be used to set up a fully automated response system that can be integrated with ground-based hardware (Drone-in-a-Box and charging pads) and computer-aided dispatch systems like 911. A system like this would function in the following way.

An emergency operator receives a forest fire alert through the computer-aided dispatch system.

The alert is routed to the nearby fire stations. A fire official logs in to the FlytNow dashboard and selects the alert, which pinpoints the fire’s location.

The firefighter requests a drone recon over the area. The response system (powered by FlytNow Enterprise) automatically creates a mission and selects a nearby drone station ( Drone-in-a-Box hardware). FlytNow Enterprise supports all popular Drone-in-a-Box hardware.

The drone receives the command and flies off autonomously. FlytNow Enterprise supports integration with UTM service providers like Airmap for airspace intelligence to support BVLOS flights.

On reaching the location, the drone starts recording and sends out a live video feed for the firefighter to see.

A firefighter has the option to use AI features like object detection to identify certain ground objects, for example, a hotspot.

The drone continues the mission until its battery becomes low. It goes back to the station and lands on the DiaB hardware using the precision landing feature by FlytNow Enterprise. The solution makes it safe for the drone to fly autonomously with advanced failsafe that allows a drone to do an emergency landing in case of a hardware failure.

Summary

In this blog, we understood the importance of drones and how they are used in controlling forest fires. We discussed in detail the challenges that drones allow firefighters to overcome, and how FlytNow as a solution enhances the capabilities of drones.

You can implement FlytNow today with our 28 days free trial and see yourself how FlytNow can enhance your workflow with drones. Making the justification of using drones even stronger.

The post How Drones are Useful in Forest Fire Response appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/drones-in-forest-fire-response/

[4gdronecontrol]

The How and Why of Using Drones for Search and Rescue Operations?

Drones provide unique capabilities that are leveraged by emergency service providers all over the world. They are already saving thousands of lives through participation in various public emergency and safety operations.

The 2020 COVID pandemic has accelerated the adoption of drones for public safety. When humanity was facing a worldwide lockdown, authorities in India used drones to monitor cities and enforce social distancing norms. Read the full case study on how an Indian startup helped authorities in the state of Gujarat to use drones via the country’s first drone command center.

When it comes to public safety, drones are used in a variety of use cases. But there is this one use case that catches peoples’ attention since the benefits are pretty straightforward. The use case we are talking about is search and rescue.

In 2019, a hiker got trapped on a ledge somewhere in the Snowy Canyon State Park, Utah. The mountain search and rescue operation happened at night using drones. SAR drones were used as a light source by the rescue team to locate the hiker. Similar to this, there are thousands of stories of how drones helped save precious lives.

How Drones are Used During Search and Rescue Missions

The real power that drones provide to rescue operators is the cheap, easy access to aerial data of a large area, which gives the rescue team the ability to save time in finding a missing person, where every second count.

Apart from the easy access to aerial data, drones can also carry different types of payloads that can be used in different situations. One such payload is the thermal camera that is extensively used during search and rescue missions.

What is a Thermal/IR Camera?

A thermal/IR camera is a sensor that can detect a small section of electromagnetic waves called infrared. These are not part of the visible light that we can see.

Anything that has mass emits infrared radiation that can be captured using a thermal camera. The camera shows the image in different shades of color or grayscale to denote varying degrees of temperatures.

How Thermal Cameras are Used in Search and Rescue Missions?

In the year 2019, an 88-year-old man from Brownsville, Texas went missing on a Monday evening after leaving his home. When the family of the man informed the police about the disappearance, a local search and rescue team was formed with help from the police and fire department.

It was not until late at night that a local drone operator was involved. Around 11 PM, drone operator Desi Tristan spotted the old man near a field in tall grass.  The drone operator was scanning the area with a drone equipped with a thermal camera. The old man, identified as Luis Reyna Zuniga, suffered from an unspecified medical condition that led to this incident. 

Here are some popular thermal drones used for search and rescue missions

A thermal camera is a pivotal part of any aerial search and rescue mission. Drones that can carry a thermal sensor and can fly for a considerable amount of time are preferred for such operations. Here are some popular models from DJI that are extensively used for public safety operations.

DJI Inspire series with the FLIR XT or XT2 thermal camera.

DJI Matrice M210

DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual with FLIR thermal sensor.

DJI M300 RTK

Parrot ANAFI Thermal

How FlytNow enhances the capabilities of drones (UAVs) in search and rescue missions

FlytNow is a cloud-based drone fleet management system that provides a unified dashboard to control multiple drones along with the live streaming of video and telemetry data.

What problem does FlytNow solve?

The traditional use of manually operated drones during a search and rescue mission hinders the sharing of drone data among different agencies (fire, police, and EMS) and thus making collaboration difficult. The problem compounds when using multiple drones flown by multiple pilots. This is where FlytNow comes as a cloud solution that connects ground pilots with a web-based dashboard that aggregates all that data, making sharing of data easy, and provides a command center to manage all the drones. The below illustration shows how the solution works.

How drones are connected to FlytNow?

FlytNow supports the popular DJI drones as well as custom drones based on PX4 and Ardupilot.

Connecting a DJI drone is easy. First, download the FlytOS mobile app and connect the mobile with the RC. The mobile connects the drone with the cloud application, allowing it to stream live data and video.

Connecting a custom drone requires a Single Board Computer (SBC) with the FlytOS operating system connected to the flight controller of the drone. The SBC establishes a connection between the drone and FlytNow via the internet over a WiFi or 4G/LTE/5G module.

Establish a command center using FlytNow Business

FlytNow Business is a standard offering that comes with useful features, for research and rescue missions, out of the box. The solution is suitable for setting up a command center to manage multiple drones during a search and rescue mission, which would yield some of the following benefits:

Members of the search and rescue team can access the drone data from their laptops or tablets since FlytNow provides a web-based dashboard over the cloud.

The dashboard comes with an advanced mission planner that can be used to automate the drones. Using this feature, a public safety officer can define the flight-path of the drones thus ensuring that a particular area is properly covered.

A drone pilot can broadcast live drone footage to multiple agencies and individuals having access to the dashboard.

FlytNow Business supports live video streaming from a thermal drone. The feed is further enhanced with the support of MSX (shows thermal images with sharp contrast and edges) and multiple color palettes including the popular isotherms. Using these features, an operator sitting at the dashboard can effectively analyze the video feeds from multiple thermal drones and locate the missing person(s) a lot faster.

FlytNow Business supports a variety of payloads including the DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise & DJI M210/M300 RTK payloads. This makes the solution versatile, which can be used in a variety of situations.

FlytNow Enterprise for a fully automated drone-based response system

FlytNow Enterprise is a customizable solution that has all the features of FlytNow Business plus additional features. The solution is ideal for establishing a drone-based response system that is integrated with computer-aided dispatch systems like 911 and a network of drone stations, powered by Drone-in-a-Box technology.

A response system like this would have the following capabilities:

An incoming emergency alert from a dispatch system like 911 can be routed to the FlytNow dashboard from where first responders can request a drone recon. This is possible because of the robust APIs of FlytNow Enterprise.

The response system can automatically dispatch a drone from a nearby drone station on request. The Enterprise version has extensive support for popular Drone–in-a-Box and charging pad solutions.

A drone can fly autonomously to an emergency location thanks to BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) capabilities of the Enterprise version and integration with UTM service providers like Airmap, Attitude Angel, etc..

During a mission, a drone can quickly perform a perimeter check and find people in distress with AI features like object detection. The drone can even land on top of a marked location using the precision landing feature.

Running a system like this would require data collection at a massive scale for compliance purposes. The Enterprise version has native integration with DroneLogbook that helps in recording and managing flight data and can generate automated reports for compliance purposes.

Summary

In this blog, we discussed the reasons why drones are a popular tool of choice in search and rescue missions, and how they are used. We also touched upon a few popular drones and payloads that are suitable for search and rescue operations. Finally, we ended by discussing how FlytNow as a solution enhances the capabilities of drones for public safety operations.

Time to switch to a better way to handle drones. Try FlytNow for 28 days free of cost.

The post The How and Why of Using Drones for Search and Rescue Operations? appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/drones-for-search-rescue/

[4gdronecontrol]

Role of FlytNow and Drones for HAZMAT Response

HAZMAT is a classification that includes materials that are harmful to organisms and the environment at large; the word itself is an abbreviation for “Hazardous Materials”. The classification includes all agents that are either biological, radioactive, or chemical in nature.

Sometimes, due to an accident, an act of war, or terrorism hazardous agents are released into the environment that causes damage to all living beings. In such an event, an urgent response becomes vital to contain the agent and mitigate the further loss of life.

In this blog, we will discuss how drones can help agencies involved in such emergency response situations and how FlytNow increases the effectiveness of drones through data-driven decisions.

Before diving into the benefits of FlytNow, it is important to understand the general process followed during a HAZMAT response and how drones are currently being used.

General Process Followed During a HAZMAT Response

HAZMAT response is an occupational hazard for people who are involved, which is why careful planning and strict protocols are very important. It is common for teams to deal with acids, gasses, cyanide, radioactive materials, inflammable substances, etc. during such responses.

According to CRAM for HAZMAT Technician, there are 8 steps for managing a HAZMAT situation, which could be treated as a general protocol.

Site management and control: This step is a tactical one, where the response team determines the safest way to approach a hazardous situation and take charge of the site. Here the aim is to create a secure staging area by cordoning off the area. The core activities of this stage are survey and monitoring, collecting data on the hazard, determining the extent of the damage, and assessing the contaminants and the overall risk.

Identification of the problem: Based on the data collected in the first stage, the hazardous material is identified and the source of the contamination is determined. The worst-case scenario and effect on the workers and the people, in the surrounding areas, is also considered.

Hazard & risk evaluation: The response team assesses the physical damage caused by the hazardous agent to the people and the area. Such an evaluation would reveal a lot about the contaminants, and its symptoms; based on which, suitable mitigative measures could be taken. For example, during a burning inferno, if people nearby are complaining of asphyxiation and headaches, then it could be a sign of carbon monoxide poisoning, based on which medical assistance can be provided.

Protective clothing and equipment: The response team deploys protective gear and measuring instruments that would allow the investigators to closely examine the contamination and acquire important information regarding the air quality, level of radioactivity (in a case dealing with radioactive substances), and other environmental factors.

Information management and resource coordination: In any kind of response, coordination is important, which is achieved through the sharing of information with various agencies and also the media. Coordination encourages cooperation and the effective utilization of the available resources.

Implementing response objectives: Based on the acquired knowledge an action plan is prepared considering the available resources. The plan focuses on the best way to stop the spread of the contaminants keeping the safety of the technicians in mind.

Decontamination: With an action plan, decontamination efforts begin with the aim of putting the damage and spread of the contamination under control. For example, in the event of a leak of a biological agent, like a virus, people who came into contact are immediately quarantined and put under observation.

Terminating the incident: This is the final step that can be broken down into four sub-steps, which are: (1) debriefing after a successful containment, (2) preparing a post-incident report, (3) a formal review highlighting the strengths and shortcomings of the response operation, (4) and complete documentation.

How Drones are Used During a HAZMAT Response

Visual Inspection

On 13 November 2019, there was an anhydrous ammonia leak in a food distribution center in Sarasota, Florida. The fire alarm inside the building was connected to the chemical monitoring system, which picked up the leak.

The fire department of Sarasota County swung into action. On arrival, the team began investigating the source of the leak, but it was proving to be difficult from inside the building. On investigation, it was found that the leak was coming from one of the chiller units on the roof. SMFR’s (Southern Manatee Fire & Rescue) and Sarasota County Fire Department HAZMAT teams were called in to deal with the situation. They had DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise drones, adapted for disaster response, with a thermal camera.

The drone was flown over the roof to track the ammonia cloud using thermal vision. Thus, the source of the leak was quickly and safely determined, and appropriate action was taken.

Identifying the Hazard Material

Firefighters at Southern Manatee Fire & Rescue department have customized the Matrice 200 series of DJI drones for detecting hazardous agents in the environment by strapping the drones with sensors that can detect vapor, chemical, and radiation. 

  A drone with such sensors is far more capable and safe than a man in a HAZMAT suit. One major benefit of using drones for HAZMAT identification is the speed with which the process can be done. 

  How FlytNow Enhances the Capabilities of Drones for HAZMAT

FlytNow is a cloud-based drone fleet management solution that provides a single dashboard to manage and control multiple drones over a 4G/LTE/5G network. The web-based dashboard has panels to see the live telemetry and the video feed of every connected drone.

How Drones are Connected

FlytNow is a hardware-agnostic platform that supports both off-the-shelf DJI drones and custom drones based on PX4 and Ardupilot.

Emergency response teams using DJI drones can easily connect with FlytNow using the FlytOS mobile app. The FlytOS mobile app connects with the drone RC and becomes a relay between the drone and the FlytNow cloud.

Connecting custom drones require a single board computer (DJI Manifold 2, Raspberry Pi 3b, Odroid N2, Jetson Nano Developer Kit, etc.), with the FlytOS operating system, connected to the autopilot. The SBC establishes the connection between the drone and FlytNow over the internet.

Using FlytNow Business for Standard HAZMAT Response

The business version of FlytNow is a standard offering. It comes with ready-to-use features that can be used in a HAZMAT response in the following ways:

An operator can use the web-based dashboard to create advanced missions for the drones. This feature is especially useful in site management of a hazardous situation. A drone can be programmed to do a perimeter check and provide vital situational information.

FlytNow supports live video streaming from all connected drones. Using this feature a HAZMAT technician can broadcast a live recon to remote experts, who can then guide the technician in identifying the hazard material and source of the leak.

The solution supports a variety of payloads, this includes the DJI M2E payloads. This feature increases the overall versatility of the drones during a mission.

FlytNow dashboard supports a variety of views. The cockpit view can be used by a remote inspector to have a better view of the situation. If the drone has a thermal camera then a viewer can switch between RGB (normal camera) and thermal mode.

In the case of DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual Camera or Matrice 210 V2 Dual Camera, the thermal mode supports MSX, which produces images with better contrast separating regions of different temperatures. Along with this, a viewer can switch between different color palettes; this feature is useful in identifying hazardous materials at different states (solid, gas, and liquid).

In an incident like the ammonia leak mentioned above, a thermal camera with different color palettes (isotherms, Rainbow, Hotspot, Gray, Hot-metal, and Coldspot for the M2E Dual) would have made the job of identifying the leak much safer and easier for the technicians, because certain color palettes are better at identifying gases.

FlytNow Business can be integrated with private cloud services such as Amazon S3. This allows for the automatic storage of all video data captured by the drones, which can be retrieved for future investigations.

Using FlytNow Enterprise to Establish a Drone Based Response System

FlytNow Enterprise offers additional features and customization when compared to the Business version. Using this version a fully automated response system can be established that is integrated with ground-based hardware (Drone-in-a-Box) and computer-aided dispatch systems like 911. This is possible because of some of the additional features provided by the Enterprise version:

REST API allows integration with various public safety systems. When integrated with such a system, an incoming HAZMAT emergency request can be routed directly to the FlytNow dashboard from where an emergency operator can initiate a drone survey.

FlytNow Enterprise works with all popular Drone-in-a-Box hardware and charging pads. In a fully integrated response system, a request from a HAZMAT technician for a drone recon can be routed to a nearby DiaB station from where a drone can launch itself and perform the task.

The advanced-mission planner can achieve flight automation of drones. Drones can be deployed automatically from remote locations with the support of UTM service providers like Airmap.

AI-based add-on features. A drone in a HAZMAT response can leverage features like object detection to automatically identify critical features of the situation.

DroneLogbook integration for robust flight data management. Public safety personnel can capture flight data of every drone flight with DroneLogbook and auto-generate meaningful reports for compliance purposes.

Summary

HAZMAT incidents are a grave danger not just to the people but the environment as well. This is why it’s important to deploy the best technology available to address such situations. Drones, as cutting-edge technology, have immense potential for HAZMAT response and are quickly becoming an integral part of the standard response in many countries.

Public safety drones can make a big difference, but managing them can be a challenge as fleets of drones get incorporated for parallel missions. This is where FlytNow, as a cloud-based offering, enables fleet management and sharing of aerial data easy and quick, across multiple agencies for better coordination.

To experience FlytNow, sign up for our free trial for 28 days using this link: https://app.flytnow.com/

Or

If you are interested in partnering with us, please reach out to us using the form here: https://flytnow.com/partner/.

The post Role of FlytNow and Drones for HAZMAT Response appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/drone-for-hazmat-response/

[4gdronecontrol]

Drone Highway Patrol: A Drone Based Response System for Highways

When we think about commercial drones, we mainly see them as a tool for aerial inspection and monitoring, since a lot of applications happen in this context. According to phillybyair.com, the construction industry was the largest user of drones, in terms of usage, in 2019, which further strengthens the perception of widespread use by this industry. 

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the commercial drone ecosystem; we are now witnessing a rapid adoption of drones by various government agencies across the world for public safety use cases. For instance, during the global pandemic lockdown, police officials in the state of Gujarat, India created the country’s first drone command center from where a fleet of drones was managed to monitor the streets of the city of Ahmedabad; read the full case study. 

If we dig deeper into the use of drones for public safety, there is one use case that is not often talked about, drones for highway patrolling. No! You won’t be getting a speeding ticket from a drone any time soon. But what drones can do is to act as first responders in emergency situations happening on highways. Clearly, drones aren’t meant to catch criminals and speeding vehicles, they are more like eyes-in-the-sky that provide situational awareness when something goes wrong. 

Why Use Drones for Highway Patrolling

With regards to highway patrolling, drones provide the following advantages:

A drone can reach a location much faster compared to ground-based vehicles, which is why they are ideal for the role of first responders. 

In situations like wildfires or avalanches, where roads get blocked, drones can be sent to assess the situation and identify people who are in distress.

Drones can help optimize the resources to be deployed for emergency response, by providing crucial first-hand information on a fast-evolving situation to human first responders (police, fire, and paramedic). 

Drones can carry a variety of payloads, such as Automated External Defibrillators. A drone carrying an AED can save lives by rapidly reaching someone having a cardiac arrest in remote areas.

Instances of Drones Used for Patrolling

Save people from avalanches: Drones are actively being used in mountainous areas for patrolling ski paths and participating in search and rescue missions, in case of an avalanche.

According to BBC, 90% of avalanche victims survive if rescued within the first 15 minutes, but the odds of surviving drops to 20% after 45 minutes. Thus, the rapid response abilities of drones become ideal for such situations.

In the Czech Republic, there is a nationwide agency called the Mountain Rescue Service of the Czech Republic that actively participates in rescuing people trapped by an avalanche. They rely on a response system based on a network of drones. When an avalanche strikes, mobile vehicles carrying drones go to the affected area and deploy the drones. The drones carry a transceiver to hone into a particular frequency that skiers transmit. In this way, skiers trapped in snow are quickly located and saved. 

Analyze crash sites: Iowa State Patrol has deployed drones to investigate crash sites on highways. Drones equipped with a high-resolution camera can be used to render 3D images and recreate accident sites for investigators. The state patrol is using this technology only for investigating accidents, not to monitor traffic violations.

How FlytNow can Power a Drone Response System for Highway Patrolling

FlytNow is a cloud-based application that offers a web dashboard to manage a fleet of drones. The dashboard has an integrated map that allows live tracking of all connected drones; it also has widgets to control the drones along with their payloads. 

FlytNow comes in two main versions (FlytNow Business and FlytNow Enterprise) for commercial users. 

How Drones are Connected to FlytNow?

FlytNow supports both DJI and custom drones. DJI drones are connected using the FlytOS mobile app. The app connects with the Remote Controller (RC) and establishes a connection with the web application. 

When connecting custom drones based on PX4 and Ardupilot or DJI enterprise drones, a single board computer (SBC) is required; this could be a Raspberry Pi 3b+/4, Odroid N2, DJI Manifold 2, Nvidia Jetson Nano / TX2, etc. that is loaded with the FlytOS operating system and connected with the autopilot of the drone. The SBC allows the drones to communicate with FlytNow and receive instructions over the cloud.

FlytNow Business for Remote Patrolling

FlytNow is a standard offering that provides out of the box features to manage drones remotely. It is ideal for localized response systems that rely on both remote viewing capabilities and the support from local pilots. Here are some of the features that help police officials:

FlytNow has a standard web-based dashboard to manage all connected drones. It has panels to monitor the live telemetry data of each drone and the live video feed coming from the drones. An officer having access to the dashboard can inspect an emergency situation remotely, and guide the personnel present at the scene. In the case of a DJI drone, an officer close to a scene might use the mobile app to share the footage with remote officers or an expert.

FlytNow Business offers integration with a private cloud server to store videos captured by the drones. Police officials can use this feature to maintain a video record of every incident captured by the drones, which might prove to be useful in future investigations.

This version supports the remote control of a variety of payloads, including payloads offered by DJI. Among the supported payloads include a thermal camera, spotlight, and loudspeaker. Such payloads are useful in special circumstances like night time search and rescue missions where time is a critical element.

FlytNow Enterprise

The FlytNow Enterprise version includes everything that the Business version has, plus additional features and the option of customization. This offering is ideal for establishing a full-fledged emergency or disaster response system that includes a network of Drone-in-a-Box installations, multi-user access, and integration with services like 911. Below is an illustration of how a system like this might work:

Understanding a drone-based response system using FlytNow Enterprise for highway Patrolling

Here we will explore how a drone-based highway response system might work using a hypothetical situation.  

At hour 21:00 on route 66, a tanker collides with a truck and catches fire. A nearby witness calls 911.

An emergency operator receives the request and triggers an alert. The alert is then routed to nearby state troopers and the fire service.

As fire engines are prepared for dispatch, a fire serviceman opens the FlytNow dashboard and selects the fire alert (made possible through integration with 911), which puts a pin on the map.

The fireman requests drone coverage for the scene. Since FlytNow is integrated with a network of drone stations, powered by Drone-in-a-Box (DiaB) hardware, a mission is created automatically and a nearby drone is selected for the task.

On receiving the command (over the internet), a drone automatically takes off from a DiaB and flies towards the location. FlytNow automatically selects an optimal path for the drone, taking into consideration airspace norms, by leveraging UTM services like Airmap.

On reaching the location, the drone begins a live-video stream of the incident, providing crucial situational awareness to the firefighters. The stream is broadcasted (the drone maintains communication with FlytNow over 4G/LTE/5G network) to nearby state troopers.

A state trooper with special privileges takes secure control of the drone’s camera and initiates a thermal scan to identify victims. The object detection capability of FlytNow allows the drone to identify crash victims. The trooper passes the information to the paramedics.

When the battery of the drone becomes low, the drone automatically returns to the DiaB to recharge and stay ready for the next mission.

Summary

In this blog, we discussed the fast-evolving adoption of drones in public safety operations, especially highway patrolling. We touched upon the utility of drones in patrolling operations and specific instances where drones have saved lives.

We then discussed how FlytNow, as a solution, enables emergency responders to build a system where drones can autonomously go to an emergency situation and provide situational awareness.

If you or your police department is interested in such a drone system, then try our 28 days free trial of FlytNow Pro. This version allows you to immediately demonstrate the power of drones for public safety.

Or contact us at https://flytnow.com/contact/ for the Business or Enterprise version.

The post Drone Highway Patrol: A Drone Based Response System for Highways appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/drone-highway-patrol/

[4gdronecontrol]

How Firefighters Can Better Manage Emergency Situations Using Drones

Drones are eyes in the sky for firefighters. They can serve as an essential firefighting tool for people in the fire services, especially in and around urban centers, where a deadly inferno might occur in a highrise building. 

Drone for fire fighting can equip fire officials with the latest technology, and add complementary capabilities to the existing resources such as fire trucks, ladders, specialized suits, etc. Firefighters can now acquire aerial information in a quick, cost-effective manner. 

In 2016, a tragic fire broke out in a warehouse in Oakland, California. The warehouse had been converted into a living space called Ghost Ship. The fire, which claimed the lives of 36 people, is one of the deadliest in the history of Oakland. Drones, equipped with a thermal camera, were used by firefighters to identify hotspots and search the unsafe-building after the fire was extinguished.

The effectiveness of drones is rapidly catching on, as agencies around the world begin to adopt this technology. In the US, more than 900 state and local agencies related to the emergency services are using drones one way or another; out of them, approximately, 186 is believed to be related to fire and emergency medical services.

Can Drones (UAVs) Put Out a Fire?

This is a common question that people often ask. A short answer is No, drones are more useful in acquiring situational awareness about the fire and its surroundings. Firefighters can use this information to control the fire and ultimately put it off. However, there are a few companies that are equipping drones with water hoses or fire extinguishing materials.

How Are Drones Used During Firefighting?

Situational awareness: In a typical scenario where a fire has broken out in a building, firefighters arrive at the spot and begin their operation with limited information about the extent of the fire and damage it has caused to the structure. 

Instead, with a fleet of drones, firefighters can begin with an aerial assessment of the scene and know the extent of the fire before starting their rescue operation.

Reach difficult places: Drones are efficient in going to tight spaces since they are nimble and agile, and deploying them first avoidings putting humans in unsafe situations.

Thermal assessment: In a firefighting situation,  firefighters work against the clock to save the lives and integrity of the structure. That is why it is important to direct their efforts towards the source of a fire.  Drones equipped with a thermal camera can assist firefighters to identify hotspots inside a blazing structure. Accordingly, firefighters can direct their efforts to bring the situation under control. 

Search and rescue:  Firefighters are actively involved in search and rescue missions. A thermal camera drone can do the job of 100 people by scanning a large area and identifying people in distress. During a natural calamity like an earthquake, thermal camera drones can fly over fallen structures and identify trapped individuals, and even identify dangerous leakages.

What Kind of Drones and Payloads are Commonly Used During Firefighting?

Drones come in all shapes and sizes, but not all of them are suitable for firefighting operations. The more suitable ones are off-the-shelf drones from the likes of DJI and custom drones based on open source stacks mainly PX4 and Ardupilot. Here are some of the drones that are considered fit for such kind of tasks:

DJI Inspire 2

DJI Matrice 300 RTK

DJI Matrice 210 V2

DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise 

Parrot ANAFI Thermal

Drones are not usable without the appropriate payloads. For firefighting purposes, these are some common payloads that are used:

Zenmuse XT2 (a thermal camera for DJI drones) 

Zenmuse Z30 (a normal camera with 30x zoom for DJI drones)

Zenmuse H20 (A hybrid camera that combines a wide-angle camera, 23x optical zoom camera, thermal camera, and laser rangefinder for DJI drones)

How FlytNow Can Make Drone Operations a Lot Smarter for the Firefighters

Traditional Challenges in Using Drones for Firefighting

The conventional way of using drones, during firefighting, is a pilot controlling a drone using the remote controller (RC). Here, the pilot becomes the relay point of all the information collected by the drone. This method of using drones may be simple, but is not very effective, since multiple pilots are required to control multiple drones. On top of the human resource requirement, there are several other disadvantages, as follows:

It becomes difficult for a drone pilot to share the data with different agencies and ground personnel, which hinders coordination.

Difficult to archive flight data, which makes it problematic for the future analysis of an emergency situation.

Data collected from multiple drones cannot be stitched together for better situational awareness. 

Sharing live data becomes difficult, more so when multiple drones are involved. 

Drone response can’t be automated since they can’t be integrated with emergency response systems like the 911 operations centers.

How FlytNow Helps in Overcoming the Traditional Challenges

FlytNow is a fleet management system that helps public safety officials to overcome challenges in using drones for firefighting. 

FlytNow is a cloud-based application that provides a unified dashboard to control a fleet of drones. It has two versions (Business and Enterprise) that cater to two different use cases.

How Drones are Connected to the FlytNow Cloud Application

FlytNow is a hardware-agnostic cloud platform meaning it supports different kinds of drones. Users using DJI drones can use the FlytOS mobile app to connect the drones to the cloud application. 

In the case of custom drones, a single board computer loaded with the FlytOS operating system can be attached to the flight controller of the drone, to facilitate communication with the FlytNow application over a 4G/LTE/5G network.

FlytNow Business

FlytNow Business is a standard offering that provides out of the box features in the form of SaaS (Software as a Service). This version is useful in establishing a quick command center, locally, for a particular response to manage the drones in operation. 

Some of the unique features and benefits that it provides are as follows:

It provides a web-based dashboard with an integrated map to control a fleet of drones. Using this feature, a single operator can control the movement of multiple drones, thus saving cost and time.

The dashboard offers live telemetry and visual data from all connected drones, with dual control from both the RC and the web dashboard. This allows for coordinated drone operations where data from multiple drones can be stitched together and shared for better situational awareness. 

The Business edition has out of the box support for live video-streaming from multiple drones that can be shared with anyone using their email address.

A viewer can switch between ‘normal’ view (RBG) and ‘thermal’ view (IR) if the drone is equipped with an IR sensor. In the case of DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual and DJI M210 V2 Dual, the FlytNow dashboard provides the MSX view that shows the lines and edges, along with the contrast, to differentiate between regions with different temperatures.

Along with MSX, FlytNow gives the option to switch between different color pallets like Rainbow, Hotspot, Gray, Isotherms, Hotmetal, and Coldspot for the M2E Dual.

Thermal imaging allows firefighters to identify hot spots and see whether they are hitting the fire. In a post-fire situation,  a thermal drone can carry out an inspection of the outer facades of the building, and send the live footage using FlyNow to a structural engineer sitting hundreds of miles away for a better assessment.

The business version has out of the box support for DJI payloads (eg. Dual Camera, Spotlight, etc) for drones such as Mavic 2 Enterprise and the Matrice 200 series. These payloads are specially designed for emergency operations.

Apart from DJI payloads, it supports remote control of the gimbal, on which the camera is attached, via the web dashboard. This allows a remote viewer to control the camera angle for a better visual.

FlytNow Enterprise

The Enterprise version adds customization and addons to the Business edition. This version is ideal for setting up a drone-based emergency response system with the following capabilities:

A system that is integrated with a dispatch system like the 911

Integration with a decentralized network of drone stations supported by Drone-in-a-Box hardware, which allows for automated dispatch of drones.

A unified dashboard that can be part of a command center, which allows for the control and management of the drones over 4G/LTE/5G. 

With respect to fire fighting, the Enterprise version offers advantages such as:

AI-based features like object detection to help identify people trapped under debris or lost in a forest.

The ability of public safety officials to maintain detailed flight-record of each and every drone flight, to comply with airspace norms. All these legal requirements and complexities are solved using FlytNow Enterprise’s native support for DroneLogbook (a flight data recording service) and Airmap (a UTM service). 

Support for custom maps, so that operators can adjust to the terrain over which drones are flying.

Summary

In this blog, we discussed the importance of drones for firefighting and how they can be used to save time, resources, and lives. We also touched upon the kind of drones and payloads used for fire fighting operations. Finally, we ended by showcasing the benefits that FlytNow provides by allowing the usage of drones at scale with data availability for proper coordination. 

If you (plan to) use drones for public safety, then FlytNow is the right software platform to allow you to leverage cloud technology for better management and transparency of your drone operations. You can get started with our 28 days of a free trial. You can also contact us at https://flytnow.com/contact/

The post How Firefighters Can Better Manage Emergency Situations Using Drones appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/drone-fire-fighting/

[4gdronecontrol]

Drone Disaster Relief – How Drones are Used for Disaster Response

The ongoing pandemic (COVID-19) has taught us many things. Among those lessons is the realization that drones can be used for operations to save people’s lives.

Even before the pandemic, at AirWorks 2019, DJI announced that drones saved the lives of 279 people around the world. The number probably represents a small fraction of documented cases where drones were used as a means for public safety. For example, during the lockdown that followed after the onset of COVID-19, drones helped Indian authorities to contain the spread of the virus by monitoring the streets for unlawful gathering. Read the full case study.

We have just scratched the surface when it comes to commercial drone usage – drones have tremendous potential in disaster management alone.

In a report from the United Nations, it has been stated that 1.2 million lives were lost, 1.7 trillion dollars of damage was done and 2.9 billion people were affected due to global disasters that occurred between 2002 and 2012. With economic and human losses of this magnitude, every new technology that promises to save lives has a huge potential, including drone technology.

What Problems do Drones Solve During a Disaster Response?

There are several pre-existing protocols that are supposed to be followed during disaster response. Most of them have been successful so far, but they create their own set of challenges. The main one is the response time, which is of great importance during disaster management. The second one is logistical support.

For example, in 2015, an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 devastated the Kathmandu region of Nepal, which claimed the lives of 9000 people. All means of transportation were destroyed which drastically affected the disaster response and relief work. Many people, trapped under the rubble, lost their lives since help didn’t reach them on time.

When the Nepali government appealed for assistance to the international community, help arrived in the form of medical support, food, and relief equipment. Several international agencies came and deployed drones to help better assess the situation and to aid the search and rescue process.

Drones were also used during the 2013 typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. They were mainly deployed to survey the impact of the storm on farmlands and ascertain future risks from similar storms.

Drones help improve the response time, since they can be deployed much faster, as compared to traditional vehicles like a helicopter. Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) drones can cover large distances and assess the situation in an event where all transportation routes have been destroyed or made inaccessible.

Drone Benefits During Disaster Response

The process of disaster management can be broken down into the following stages:

Prevention

Preparation

Reponse

Recovery

Using drones for disaster response can add value to all of the above-mentioned stages according to a study from Zurich North America. The study highlights the correlation between a short response during the early phase of disaster recovery with increased success in search and rescue operations.

To better appreciate the benefits of using drones, consider the following:

Drones can ensure the safety of people. During the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster 2011, drones were used to survey the extent of the disaster without risking the lives of the relief workers.

Drones are quite effective as first responders since they can be deployed fast and easily, as compared to manned aerial vehicles.

Drones are relatively inexpensive, and with the help of a drone fleet management system, can be deployed in large numbers as autonomous fleets.

Drone Applications for Supporting Disaster Response

Drones are a versatile tool, to be used in various ways, as a critical aid in disaster response.

Drones have long been in use for aerial mapping and surveys. The same application can be easily extended to disaster response. For example, drones were used during the landslide of Oso, Washington in 2014 to map the region after the incident.

It often happens during an earthquake that a partially damaged building or a civic structure requires a thorough inspection before it can be deemed safe for humans to go there. Drones equipped with sensors like infrared (IR) cameras can do the job safely.

Drones can be used for medical delivery. A US-based company called Matternet did its first field trial of medical delivery using drones to camps set up after the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Drones can be used for search and rescue operations. In 2005, fixed-wing drones were used to search for survivors after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi.

How FlytNow Enables Drones for Disaster Relief

Drones are not just a piece of hardware; they are usually paired with intelligent software to make them truly effective. In a disaster situation of a large magnitude, having multiple drones can be advantageous, but managing a swarm of drones is not easy. FlytNow, with its cloud-based software solution, solves the problem of simultaneously controlling and managing a large number of drones.

In brief, FlytNow works as a cloud application that provides a unified dashboard to manage drones connected to the system. When a request comes for deploying a drone, an emergency response operator can use the advanced mission planner to create a flight path for the drone and initiate the launch. Once in the air, the drone flies with full autonomy as per the mission plan. Below is an illustration of how a drone public safety operation might operate:

FlytNow is available in two versions, FlytNow Business and Enterprise; the latter offers a host of customization options.

FlytNow Business

This is a standard offering that provides usability out of the box. The offering comes with features specifically designed for disaster response and public safety operations. Here are some of those features and how they benefit disaster relief operations:

The ability to control drones over 4G/LTE/5G networks. By combining this feature with VTOL drones, a disaster response team can fly drones for long distances, and conduct surveys and mapping of an affected area.

Role-based access to the system. Disaster response teams are multi-faceted and not all require the same level of access to the drones. A relief worker on the ground might require only video access compared to someone who is required to assess the entire situation for planning logistics.

A mixed fleet of drones. FlytNow is a hardware-agnostic platform i.e. it supports both off-the-shelf and custom drones based on PX4 and Ardupilot. In a disaster situation, different types of drones might be required. For example, delivery drones are heavy and can carry large packages. Whereas, drones meant for surveys are smaller in size and may even have fixed wings for long-distance flight.

Live video streaming and sharing. Video feeds from a swarm of drones flying over a disaster affected area can be streamed onto a single unified dashboard, which is ideal for command center operations.

FlytNow Enterprise

The Enterprise version includes FlytNow Business as well as customization and add-ons, for operations that need scalability and a high degree of automation. This edition includes an operating system, which is installed on a single-board computer (SBC) – the SBC is then attached to the flight controller of a drone. This configuration allows for add-ons and integration, some of them are as follows:

AI-based features:

Obstacle avoidance, also known as FlytCAS, allows a drone to fly over a complex environment. This feature is useful when a drone is flying over or near ruins which can throw unexpected obstacles.

Precision landing, also known as FlytDock, allows a drone to land precisely on a machine-generated visual tag. This feature can be used when a drone has to land on a specific location to make a delivery.

Object detection, also known as FlytAI, allows a drone to detect objects from its video feed. This feature can be used to detect moving objects or humans on the ground during a search and resume operation.

Support for third-party integrations: The FlytNow application supports integration with third-party applications. During a disaster scenario, it is important to accurately log the drone flights and to make sure the drones don’t interfere with other aircraft. There are service providers like DronelogBook for flight data recording and Airdata for airspace intelligence, which can be integrated with FlytNow easily.

Advanced geofence: For the safety of the drones and compliance with airspace norms, it is necessary to restrict the area of operation during any relief work. FlytNow supports polygon geofences for operators to work on complex geography.

Integration with ground-based hardware: FlytNow has native support for ground-based hardware like charging pads and Drone-in-a-Box systems. By using such hardware, a first-responder system can be set up where the launch and docking of a drone are fully automated. When disaster strikes, such systems can be activated for faster response and expedite the overall relief process.

Some Instances of FlytNow in Use

During the recent lockdown for COVID-19, India’s first drone command center was established in Ahmedabad, by Dronelab, using FlytNow, which allowed local drone pilots to launch coordinated operations to monitor the streets for unlawful gathering.

One of our partners in Belgium, DR ONE, is using FlytNow for airport asset monitoring.

History was created in the city of Lillestrøm, Norway, when Droneverkstedet, one of our partners, conducted the very first remote drone construction site inspection using FlytNow over a 5G network.

Summary

In this blog, we discussed the usability of drones in disaster response and the problems they help solve. Then we reviewed the benefits of using drones for use cases in disaster situations. Finally, we ended on the note of how the FlytNow drone fleet management system enables disaster management teams to quickly deploy and manage drones for disaster relief.

What's Next?

Leverage the power of FlytNow to conduct remote public safety operations with capabilities of automation and AI. To experience FlytNow, sign up for our free trial for 28 days using this link: https://flytnow.com/pricing/

If you are interested in partnering with us, please visit https://flytnow.com/partner/.

The post Drone Disaster Relief – How Drones are Used for Disaster Response appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/drone-disaster-relief/

[4gdronecontrol]

Medicine from the Sky – How FlytNow Can Power a Medical Delivery System Using Drones

Drone delivery is not a new concept; it has existed for over a decade, especially in health care. A company called Zipline has been doing medical deliveries in Africa, long before Amazon came into the picture with its Prime Air service.

Another startup called Matternet ran its first trial of medical drone delivery in Haiti back in 2012, during one of the worst earthquakes known to man. In fact, the use of drones in healthcare has received the lion’s share of attention, due to the fact that it is a commercial as well as a public health opportunity.

Why do drones have a promising future in medical delivery?

Using drones might not yet be practical from an overall logistics point of view since traditional vehicles remain more effective than drones. But when considering the delivery of time-critical medical payloads like blood samples, organs, emergency aids, vaccines, biological drugs, etc. unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can play a pivotal role in saving lives.

Drones can bridge the gap between the medical facilities available to the urban and rural populations by providing critical and timely medical care to people in remote areas.

Global Market Insights has estimated that the medical drone market will hit US $399 million by 2025 and that this growth will be driven by advancements in drone hardware and software.

A decade-long effort by various drone companies to create the technology to support drone deliveries – and the recent use of drones in the fight against COVID-19 – has instilled enough confidence among the medical fraternity to accept drones as a viable means to deliver critical medical services.

The story of drone medical deliveries in India is worth a mention. India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, but with a myriad of problems – one being a huge lack of doctors in rural areas, making innumerable villages inadequately equipped to provide proper medical care. This problem is now being tackled across the central, state, and local governments. For example, in association with World Economic Forum’s Centre for Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) Network, the government of the Indian state Telangana has stated a pilot medical drone delivery project called Medicine from the Sky which will eventually be formalized into a comprehensive plan to provide last-mile critical medical services to the rural population of the state.

How will a medical drone delivery system work?

A drone delivery system must be powered by reliable, scalable hardware and intelligent automation software. The following diagram illustrates a high-level overview of such a system.

The components of a drone delivery system can be divided into the following aspects:

Drone Hardware

Fleet Management Solution

Onboard Software

Drone-in-a-Box Hardware

UTM Integration

Advanced Fail-safes

Use FlytNow for Delivery to launch ‘Medicine from the Sky’ projects

Projects like ‘Medicine from the Sky’ require a robust fleet management solution to plan, manage, log, and share flights of drone fleets. FlytNow for Delivery is one such cloud-based fleet management solution that is easy to set up, cloud-connected, and operate. It offers the necessary automation capabilities and third-party integrations to manage large scale projects like ‘Medicine from the Sky’.

Below is a list of capabilities which make FlytNow suitable for drone delivery projects:

Since FlytNow for Delivery is a web application, it is easy to deploy and can be done in a couple of days.

It supports off-the-shelf DJI drones as well as custom drones based on PX4 and Ardupilot.

FlytNow provides dashboards to control all aspects of your delivery operation e.g. a dashboard for dispatch operators to launch and manage delivery missions, and a dashboard for recipients to track incoming deliveries.

FlytNow Enterprise version is fully customizable to suit complex business needs and use-cases.

FlytNow has built-in features for team management since multiple users, drones, and stakeholders are typically involved in drone delivery operations.

Users can create unlimited missions, where each mission tells a drone where to go and how to go there.

Remote stakeholders can watch live video feeds, streamed from multiple drones, to get real-time insights into drone missions, before – during – and after deliveries.

Apart from live-video streaming, users can also share video streaming with your stakeholders, and control access based on roles, without such stakeholder being on the FlytNow platform.

The solution is highly modular and can be seamlessly integrated with third-party hardware and software.

FlytNow’s mission planning module supports advanced geofencing using polygons.

Users of FlytNow can remotely control various payloads, camera, and gimbal of drones, via SBCs (Single Board Computers).

How FlytNow Offers An Integrated Drone Delivery Solution?

FlytNow as a cloud-connected solution brings all the aspects of a drone delivery system seamlessly together. It is akin to the heart of a system and unifies the following components:

Drone Hardware

This refers to the actual drone that is used for making the deliveries. The specific type of drone to be used will depend on the nature of the operation.

For long flights, fixed-wing drones are used since this type of drone can fly long distances due to better battery life. For example, Zipline uses its custom-built fixed-wing drone for their deliveries.

Multi-rotor drones are more suitable for short-distance flights and for carrying heavier payloads.

Please refer to our The Definitive Guide to Setup Drone Delivery System to learn more about drones suitable for such operations.

Drone delivery missions are often dependent on BVLOS or EVLOS capabilities, which are provided by the fleet management system. Thus, each drone has to constantly stay connected with FlytNow over a cellular (4G/LTE/5G) network, when out on a mission.

Drone Operating System

All drones need a flight controller to help them fly and maneuver. To make drones work within an automated cloud-connected fleet management system requires a companion computer (SBC) with an operating system eg. the FlytNow SBC Integration Software Kit which is in the form of an operating system that connects a drone to FlytNow, and provides additional capabilities like:

Hover and precision landing.

Object detection and collision avoidance.

Gimbal control.

Control of mechanical attachments like a clamp to release a package

Drone-in-a-Box (DiaB) Hardware

These are on-ground hardware like docking stations, charging pads, launch systems, etc. These systems help in automating the launch of a drone and later put it in charging mode after returning from a delivery mission. Such components can be integrated into FlytNow to enable an end-to-end automation solution. For example, FlytNow supports third-party ground hardware from Airscort, Skysense, WiBotic, etc.

UTM Integration

In order to scale BVLOS or EVLOS drone missions, it’s important to comply with airspace norms set by various regulatory authorities. There are numerous Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) service providers that provide dynamic airspace intelligence, most of whom provide APIs that are leveraged by FlytNow for operational integration. With airspace intelligence, drones can fly routes that aren’t likely to cause conflicts with manned aircraft flights.

Advanced Fail-safes

Drones are expensive, and when one fails it’s not just a monetary loss but, more importantly, it also poses a threat to the lives of the people down below. This is why these must be comprehensive safety features built into the drone fleet management system. FlytNow for Delivery offers advanced fail-safe features such as:

Return to Home: This feature is a single function, designed to call a drone back to the base station, useful during bad weather conditions or when there’s an adverse flying advisory.

Emergency Landing Point (ELP): This feature allows the setting of emergency landing points along a delivery route. This is useful in an event of mechanical failure where the drone has to land nearby.

Summary

In this blog post, we discussed the rapidly growing importance of drones in medical delivery. We broke down a typical drone delivery system into its key components and discussed how FlytNow can serve as a complete solution for drone delivery operations.

To get started, sign up for our 28 days free trial: https://flytnow.com/pricing/

Or contact us at https://flytnow.com/contact/

The post Medicine from the Sky – How FlytNow Can Power a Medical Delivery System Using Drones appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/medicine-from-the-sky/

[4gdronecontrol]

FlytNow Tutorial for Virtual Drone

A virtual drone, as the name suggests, is a drone instance that lets you simulate everything a drone can do in a safe and secure way. You can connect a virtual drone with FlytNow and test the product without having a real drone. Creating a virtual drone requires access to the FlytBase cloud.

How to Create a Virtual Drone

Step 1: Go to my.flytbase.com

Create an account using your email ID.

Step 2: Once you have submitted your credentials, the system will ask you to verify your email address. Check your email and click on the verification link.

Step 3: Once you confirm your email address, log in to the account using your credentials. You will be taken to the dashboard.

Step 4: Activate your cloud API subscription. Click on Cloud option from the right side menu

You will be asked to fill up a request form. Fill the form and submit, and you will be granted beta access.

Step 5: Click on My Devices. You will see a button to add a virtual device.

Step 6: Click on add Virtual Device. A virtual drone will be added to your My Device section.

Step 7: Under Options, click on the play button to start the drone. Now click on the rocket icon next to the play button. In a new window, you will be asked to generate an access token.

Step 8: Click on Take me there.

Step 9: In the new page, click on the Generate access token button.

Step 10: On the next page, toggle the Access Status to on.

Adding Virtual Drone to FlytNow

Option 1: Log in to app.flytnow.com with your FlytBase credentials.

You will be asked to agree to our terms and conditions. In the Select a drone to Add window, you will see the virtual drone; here you can add the drone.

Option 2: You can also add the drone from the FlytNow dashboard if you decide to skip the window.

In the dashboard, click on Add Drone under FLY. There you will see your virtual drone.

Option 3: You can also add a virtual drone using its vehicle ID and access token if you select Manual from the Add Drone dialog box. You can get the vehicle ID and access token from your FlytBase account.

Summary

In this blog, we learned how to enable a virtual drone and add it to the FlytNow platform. 

To get started with FlytNow, sign up for our 28 days free trial: https://flytnow.com/pricing/ 

Or contact us at https://flytnow.com/contact/

The post FlytNow Tutorial for Virtual Drone appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/flytnow-tutorial-for-virtual-drone/

[4gdronecontrol]

The Definitive Guide to Setup Drone Delivery System (2020)

Commercial drones are now becoming a mainstream technology, with the 2020 pandemic serving as a showcase for how drones can save human lives.

Drones have been used for delivery long before Amazon announced its Prime Air service. Founded in 2011, Zipline, a US-based company focused on medical drone deliveries became the pioneer in long-distance drone delivery, with distribution centers in Rwanda and Ghana. With an exponential growth since then, Zipline now delivers 65% of blood samples in Rwanda, particularly because the country lacks suitable road connectivity.

Companies like Zipline are investing heavily not only in better drone hardware but also in remote operations software, so they can intelligently & centrally manage a large fleet of drones.

How Does Drone Delivery Work?

Drone delivery refers to the act of moving a package from point A to B using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Such UAVs are either autonomous or remotely controlled by human pilots.

The infrastructure that powers drone delivery operations requires seamless integration between reliable drone hardware and robust software that can enable EVLOS/BVLOS Operations. The components of such systems include:

Drone Hardware

Drones that are capable of carrying heavy payloads; for example:

Links to above-mentioned drone specs:

DJI M600 Pro

DJI M210 V2

[New]DJI M300 RTK

GAIA 160MP-Heavy Lift Drone

D130 X8 Titan Version Combo

FOXTECH Great Shark 330 VTOL

IMPOSSIBLE AREOSPACE US-1 Performance Aircraft

Companies like Zipline, Wing, etc., have their own fleet of drones specifically designed and developed to suit their specific delivery needs.

Note:

The above specifications are as given on the DJI and Foxtech website.

FlytNow is compatible with all DJI, Ardupilot, and PX4 based drones and provides software modules for EVLOS/BVLOS operation over 4G/LTE, 5G, Long-range RF.

Drone Fleet Management Software

Drone delivery requires an advanced fleet management software like FlytNow that helps plan & execute long-range EVLOS/BVLOS flights with live tracking and drone control over 4G/LTE/5G.

FlytNow Delivery is a cloud-based offering that can be used for package delivery operations. Delivery businesses can use off-the-shelf or custom drones to quickly set up a delivery system in their geography. FlytNow solution cuts the deployment time to a few days and gives a unified web-based dashboard to control and manage every aspect of a drone delivery operation. FlytNow Delivery Offers:

Operator Dashboard – Centralized web-interface to manage all logistics operations

Dispatcher Dashboards – Web interface for store-fronts/medical centers to create delivery requests and live tracking.

Recipient Dashboard – Web and mobile interface to live track drone location and delivery status

Onboard Drone Software:

A drone equipped with intelligent onboard software make this kind of operation autonomous and safe. With the integration of FlytOS intelligent modules and sensors with onboard SBC (Nvidia Jetson Nano, DJI Manifold 2, Raspberry Pi 3B+/4), drones can do:

Autonomous Precision Landing or Hover (see FlytDock)

Collision Avoidance (see FlytCAS)

Electro-mechanical gripper control for package pick and drop

Electro-mechanical pulley control for releasing a package from a height.

Drone-in-a-Box (DiaB) Hardware:

For operations to be autonomous and efficient — physical, on-ground components such as a docking station, charging pad, launching systems, etc. are required. With FlytNow DiaB integration enables remote control & telemetry in the same delivery interface. Our enterprise solution also offers integration with DiaB APIs. Below are a few DiaB and charging pad solutions for reference:

Airscort  https://www.airscort.me/ 

Skysense (https://www.skysense.co)

WiPo Wireless Solution (https://www.wipo-wirelesspower.com/)

WiBotic (https://www.wibotic.com/)

UTM Integration:

Airspace intelligence and management is a critical enabler for scalable, safe, beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) or extended-visual-line-of-sight (EVLOS) enterprise drone programs. Such integration with a UTM engine or national airspace services can augment sense-and-avoid capabilities with regards to airspace, flying advisories, and weather information for optimal path planning while avoiding no-fly zones and manned aircraft. Some leading UTM and providers are:

Airmap

Attitude Angel

Unifly

Airpalette

DigitalSky (for India)

Learn about the FlytBase partnership with AirMap here

FlytNow can be integrated with any 3rd party private or government UTM API services.

Advanced Fail-safes:

Whether you are flying in rural or suburban areas, the safety of people on the ground and expensive drone equipment is of utmost importance. Emergency situations like flight system failure, bad weather conditions, or immediate advisory from the local aviation authorities may happen anytime.

In addition to standard drone fail-safes (RTH, Geofence, etc.), FlytNow provides Emergency Landing Point (ELP) Failsafes. ELP Failsafes allow you to define landing points along your delivery route and land the drone on the nearest ELP when a situation arises.

FlytNow also provides advanced geofence features to draw a polygon on a map along the delivery route to restrict drones from going outside the designated area.

In unavoidable situations, a safety parachute on the drone can avoid accidents. Here are some of the brands which offer drone safety parachutes:

Indemis

ParaZero

VectorSave

Use FlytNow to Quickly Demo Your Drone Delivery Operation

FlytNow Pro is a cloud-based SaaS solution, well suited to help drone operators and service providers quickly set up a PoC (proof-of-concept) delivery system to validate a proposed delivery plan or to manage customer demos.

If you are someone who is looking to quickly validate a delivery idea then FlytNow Pro is a good starting point. As more requirements get identified, customers can then migrate to FlytNow Enterprise for Drone Delivery, which offers an end-to-end software suite with advanced capabilities and priority support.

Getting Started with FlytNow Pro for Drone Delivery PoC

Step 1: Sign up for a 28 days free FlytNow Pro account.

First signup to our free 28 days trial by visiting: https://my.flytbase.com/accounts/signup/?next=https://app.flytnow.com

Open your email and verify it before you can access the dashboard. Login to your account using your credentials.

On the dashboard, you can add drones, create a flight mission, set up a pre-flight checklist, and define a geofence.

In the above screenshot, We have already added our drones and two of them are online. In your case, you have to add the drones. Follow our getting started guide to add your DJI drones.

Do not have a drone? Try FlytNow Pro with Virtual Drone. Follow Step 2

(Optional) Step 2: Adding a virtual drone.

Your free trial account supports up to five drones. In case you don’t have a drone, you can also add a virtual drone, you can add one virtual drone. For a virtual drone, you need to set up your FlytBase cloud APIs. Please follow this guide.

Once granted access to the cloud, you can use your virtual drone’s vehicle ID and token to add it to the FlytNow dashboard.

Step 3: Creating a Mission Plan.

A mission plan lets you add a route for your drone. Considering you are testing a medical delivery system, you use the mission plan to define routes to all the medical centers you want to make deliveries.

To add a mission plan, click on Mission -> Add Mission. Give a name to your mission and click on Add Waypoints to begin defining your route. Clicking on the map will place a pin; this way you can place multiple pins.

In the above screenshot, we have defined a mission that tells a drone how to go to Palo Alto Health Care. Apart from defining a route, you can set the flight speed and a Finish Action. The Finish Action tells a drone what to do once it reaches the destination; you can set the following actions.

Hover

Land

Return to Home

In our case, we have selected Return to Home that signifies that the drone will drop the payload and return to base.

Please note that FlytNow Pro offers limited features for mission planning. Advanced features are available in FlytNow Enterprise for Delivery.

Step 4: Creating a pre-flight checklist.

This feature allows you to create a pre-flight checklist. In the case of a delivery operation, a checklist will ensure that a drone is configured properly before it is sent out on a mission.

To create a checklist, click on CHECKLIST and then Add to Checklist to add a checklist item. While adding a checklist item, you can also add a description.

We have created a checklist suited for drone delivery operations. You can create your own checklist.

Step 5: Setting up a geofence

A geofence allows you to set up a boundary for your operations. Once you set a boundary, FlytNow will not allow your drones to fly beyond the boundary.

You can set up a geofence by:

Going to the GEOFENCE section in the FlytNow dashboard where you should be able to see your drones as a list.

Click on the edit option available in front of your drone name.

Enable the Geofence radius by clicking on the button.

Set the Geofence Values as per your safety requirements, i.e Height, and Radius.

The Height is restricted to 500 meters and radius is restricted to 8000 meters.

Click on the Save button after entering the values.

The following image shows you how your dashboard will look after geofence is set successfully.

A geofence has two circles. The area between the circles is called a warning zone. Whenever a drone crosses the first circle, the system gives out a warning, but it will not let the drone go beyond the second circle.

While planning a mission, you can’t put a waypoint beyond the first circle.

Step 6: Turn on Live video feed (feature works with a real drone only).

You can access the video feed of a drone from the dashboard. This feature is useful when a drone is out for delivery. This way you can visually assess a flight mission.

Select a drone under the FLY tab. Now you can see the video feed on the top right corner.

You can also enable the multi-cam mode (refer to the above picture) that will allow you to view the video feed from all drones on a single screen.

Step 7: Share live drone location and video feed with a third party (feature works with a real drone only).

You can share live drone locations and video streams with anyone outside the FlytNow platform. This feature is useful especially when you want to share tracking information with a recipient which might include live video feed from the drone.

To initiate sharing click on the share button on the video panel

In the next dialog box click on Create new link.

Enter the email address of the person to whom you want to share the video.

Select the drones and your preferred options. You get the option to share both the map and the video.

The person with whom you have shared the live feed gets an email with a secure PIN. Tell him/her to click on View Operation and enter the secure PIN to start the live streaming.

Initiating a Drone Delivery

Once you are done with the basic setup, it is time to launch your first delivery mission. Consider a situation where you have received a delivery request from a nearby medical center, and you are about to initiate a launch.

Step 1: Launching a drone and selecting a mission.

Under the FLY tab select a drone (has to be online) and click on the launch icon in the bottom right corner.

You will be asked to select a flight mode. Select Mission. In the next window, you will see all your missions. Select a mission and click on start.

Step 2: Completing the pre-flight checklist and executing the mission.

Next, you have to complete the pre-flight checklist.

Once you are done with the checklist, hit Execute to begin your delivery.

What’s the Next Step?

FlytNow Enterprise a Perfect Solution for Large Scale Drone Delivery Operations

We have been talking about FlytNow Pro which has limited features but ideal for validating an idea or doing a POC. Once you are done with the validation stage, it’s time to move to FlytNow Enterprise.

FlytNow Enterprise is a fully-featured comprehensive drone automation solution designed for large scale drone deployment. The solution is fully customizable and can be used in a variety of use cases, and drone delivery is one of them.

Here are some exclusive features of FlytNow Enterprise:

Add and manage multiple drones, operators, and clients.

Assign a drone to a delivery request.

Generate automatic, unlimited flight plan (straight line) from drone location to the delivery location, edit if required.

Control the gimbal, manually trigger RTH, and land for emergency situations.

Recording of video streams.

Set an advanced geofence – support of polygon geofence.

Integrate with third-party services like DroneLogbook and UTM like Airmap.

Integrate with Drone-in-a-box or charging pad like Skysense, WiBotic, Airscort.

For enterprise drones (DJI, PX4, Ardupilot), FlytNow provides SBC, with the FlytOS installed, for direct integration to make BVLOS flight possible over 4G/LTE/5G network. We also provide accessories and landing tag design for precision landing over charging pads.

Schedule a 30-min free consultation with our expert to learn more about the FlytNow Drone Delivery Software Solution, contact us at https://flytnow.com/contact/

Sign up to subscribe to our newsletter.

The post The Definitive Guide to Setup Drone Delivery System (2020) appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/the-definitive-guide-to-setup-drone-delivery-system-2020/

[4gdronecontrol]

Multi-Cam Drone Video Footage for Security, Inspections & Public Safety

Drones with cameras have both commercial and recreational applications. For commercial use-cases, the ability to live stream videos, with low latency, is crucial for the effective use of drones. This enables enterprise stakeholders to see things happening far away, in near-real-time, from a bird’s eye view. Many industries, sectors, and use-cases can leverage such remote drone operations, for example:

Search & rescue

Surveillance and security

Monitoring and inspection

Public safety

A cloud-connected, user-friendly solution can thus be leveraged by drone operators, specialized service providers, UAV system integrators and enterprise drone program managers.

Multi-Camera Streaming via FlytNow

  The capability to stream videos from multiple drones, simultaneously, is now available in FlytNow, the remote drone operations solution from FlytBase. Multiple camera (‘Multi-Cam’) streams can be viewed from a single operator dashboard, which can also be used to control multiple drones, their payloads, camera gimbals, etc.

Top 3 Use Cases of Multi-Cam Streaming

  While there are numerous commercial applications that can benefit from drone fleets and multiple-camera streaming capabilities, these 3 seem to be gaining the most traction.

Security & Surveillance

  Automated drone patrols are at the heart of surveillance of residential, commercial, and industrial premises. With the FlytNow multi-cam feature, surveillance drone operators can cover large areas from a single dashboard; it allows them to gain situational awareness during a security breach, with the added advantage of images & video surveillance from different angles.

Security stakeholders can combine different views (eg. thermal and normal camera feeds) and be much more effective during night time, low visibility conditions, etc.

Asset Inspection

  Drones are used to inspect infrastructural and other valuable assets that are remote, hard to reach, or massive in size. With FlytNow, inspection personnel can view such assets from multiple angles, with the videos streamed in real-time, from multiple drones, to a single dashboard in the command center or control room. This ability is useful in a range of remote inspection activities such as structural inspections, wind turbine inspections, cell tower inspections, oil & gas refinery inspections, and pipeline inspections.

Structural Inspections

Large structures under construction require to be inspected quite regularly – this includes visual observations of foundations, roofs, and key structural components. The inspection data provide insights into the overall condition, progress, and maintenance needs of such properties.

The traditional way of inspecting, which involved manual inspection of only some of the areas of a large structure, is severely lacking – not only in coverage but also in terms of safety. Drone footage, on the other hand, can both improve coverage, reduce inspection time, and eliminate almost all safety concerns. Drone fleets powered by FlytNow can give stakeholders automated aerial views, from multiple angles, of important but hard-to-reach structural locations.

Wind Turbine Inspections

Periodic inspections are an important part of the maintenance programs of wind-turbine sites, so as to maintain their efficiency, safety, and longevity. It’s important to check the structural integrity of the blades, since different parts expand and contract differently under varying climatic conditions. Blades are also subject to damage from dirt, birds, snow, ice, etc.

Here, drones are now being used to rapidly, safely, and quickly scan the different parts of a wind turbine with highly calibrated IR sensors and high-resolution cameras. With FlytNow Enterprise, an inspector can capture different aerial views of a blade, control the camera gimbal remotely, and maintain a safe distance automatically.

Cell Tower Inspections

Cell towers are tall structures that need periodic inspections to keep them operational and safe. Drone-based inspections can help significantly reduce the amount of time that people have to spend on a tower for such inspections. Safety, speed, and cost are all factors in making remote aerial inspections more amenable for broad adoption. Using FlytNow, live streams from drone fleets can be delivered to a single dashboard; these videos can then be shared with guest users, regulators and other stakeholders in cell tower inspections.

Refinery and Pipeline Inspections

Drones are being designed and deployed for corrosion detection, analysis of cracks, spillage, and leak detection in oil and gas refineries and along long-distance pipelines. The information gathered by drone fleets can be invaluable for maintenance and planning at these complex facilities, with billions of dollars of infrastructure at stake. The speed with which inspection data is gathered can be drastically improved using multiple, autonomous drones, powered by multi-cam streaming available via FlytNow.

Public Safety

  The biggest risk in public safety is to first responders, who have to be on-site without timely situational awareness. They also have to deploy fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, and other equipment – without first being able to assess the situation.

US-based technology company Phirst Technologies, which focuses on public safety solutions, has integrated autonomous drones into the CAD system that supports the 911 service. The idea is to dispatch drones from a unified dashboard to assess a situation before sending human responders. The solution is called FIRST iZ, and they are using FlytBase technology to power their drone automation.

Drones thus offer a compelling capability for incident response – public safety authorities can deploy them first, gain real-time awareness, and make better-informed decisions about people and equipment deployments.

Search and Rescue

Drones are actively used worldwide for search and rescue operations because they can cover a large area in less time while providing a bird’s-eye view. In 2018, police in the UK used drones to find a semiconscious man on the cliff of Exmouth; they used thermal imaging to locate and save the person.

These capabilities are now available in FlytNow so that search parties can quickly dispatch a fleet of drones and stream the live footage from them to a single dashboard, thus expediting the search and rescue process.

Firefighting

Drones fitted with IR sensors can find people trapped in difficult situations such as forest fires where visibility can be quite poor. In 2018, fires scorched more than 150,000 acres in less than two weeks in California. 16 teams of public safety officials clocked 500 drone flights in 3 days. UAV flight data was used to aid search and rescue operations, and pinpoint the path of the fire.

Since such operations may require scanning a very large area, of the order of hundreds of square miles, features like multi-cam streaming are crucial for the deployment of a large fleet of thermal drones.

Law Enforcement

During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, drones deployed in the city of Ahmedabad, India helped monitor lockdown and mitigate the spread of the deadly coronavirus. A central command center was established, with the FlytNow dashboard receiving live video streams from multiple drones flying across the city.

—

To get started with FlytNow visit our Get Started Guide.

or contact us at https://flytnow.com/contact

The post Multi-Cam Drone Video Footage for Security, Inspections & Public Safety appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/multi-cam-drone-video-surveillance/

[4gdronecontrol]

Enhance Night-time Surveillance with Thermal Imaging Drones

Drone technology has witnessed a rapid maturity curve – with regards to not only hardware and software technology but also the use cases across industries and sectors. Consumer drones have gone past the typical use in film production and recreational uses. These prosumer off-the-shelf drones are now solving complex business problems – for example, in logistics, drones are being deployed to do last-mile delivery, managing inventory, and conducting security patrols.

In this blog, we will specifically focus on thermal imaging drones and the related use cases. Let’s start with an introduction to thermal imaging, understand how it works and how it might be used, via different drones and cameras, for commercial applications.

Need for Thermal Imaging

The ability to let people visualize what their eyes cannot, have led to the popularity of thermal cameras for conducting inspections and patrols. Owing to the invisible heat radiations emitted or reflected by all objects, such cameras record and produce an image of any object having a temperature above zero without the need for visible light. The hotter the object, the brighter it will appear in the thermal image (you can choose the color pallet accordingly).

Such differences in temperature of the objects under observation are then represented in different colors. Generally, blue shades are used to represent colder objects, while red shades are used to represent hotter ones.

Thermal imaging has therefore been known to offer superior protection in demanding conditions. Some of the prime benefits include:

Ability to remove blind spots

Capture data in low-light or at night time

Examine inaccessible areas

Ability to see-through camouflaging foliage

Recommended Thermal Cameras for Drones

Drones with thermal cameras have resulted in unparalleled flexibility for many businesses that require constant protection against potential intruders. Adding a thermal camera as a payload, allows operators to view thermograms in real-time, with the ability to immediately identify objects from the radiation emitted.

Some of the key factors to take into consideration while choosing an appropriate payload aligned for business include:

Is the camera radiometric or non-radiometric?

A radiometric camera provides a temperature reading along with the thermal image.

Does the camera come with a gimbal or a fixed mount?

A camera with a gimbal offers greater control to the operator over the camera movement.

Here are some recommended payloads:

Popular Drones used for Thermal Imaging

Apart from having a fast turn-around time, drones are pocket-friendly as compared to installing thermographic cameras at several locations in the property with a higher possibility of blind spots. Some of the cost-effective drones that could quickly cover the entire facility and be used 24��7 for monitoring include:

Use Cases of Thermal Imaging Drones

Aerial imagery is the primary application of commercial drones; with a thermographic camera, drones can further add value for various enterprise applications.

More recently, during the outbreak of COVID-19, thermal cameras were widely used by the public safety authorities in many countries to detect infected people by checking body temperatures. Thermal drones were also used to identify people defying lockdown rules or social distancing guidelines imposed by many countries especially at night.

Why use FlytNow for Automated Night Surveillance

FlytNow Enterprise for Security and Surveillance enables drone operators, service providers, and enterprises to remotely operate a fleet of thermal drones.

An ideal solution due to the following capabilities:

FlytNow provides geofencing and intelligent waypoint design that a security service provider can use to schedule patrols. The geofencing feature creates a virtual boundary for your drones. The platform allows the creation of unlimited flight plans and streaming of live telemetry to further aid such operations.

The cloud-based platform provides live, low-latency streaming of thermal video from multiple drones on a single dashboard, which can be used to inspect a structure or situation from multiple angles and viewpoints. An operator can remotely control the camera gimbal of drones connected to the FlytNow system, and thus effectively track different objects on the ground. With the AI detection feature, FlytNow allows the auto-identification of objects and humans.

With FlytNow, one can share a live video feed with anyone using an URL, including the map view. This way, a FlytNow user can share his screen with someone who doesn’t use the platform.

FlytNow provides integration with Airmap and DroneLogbook so users can scale their BVLOS flights.

FlytNow integrates with Skysense charging pads so users can completely automate the launch, operate, and docking cycle of a drone. It also supports precision landing so drones can land on charging pads.

Here is an illustration of what drones with thermal imaging working at scale might look like.

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To get started with FlytNow visit: https://flytnow.com/getting-started-with-FlytNow/

or contact us at https://flytnow.com/contact

The post Enhance Night-time Surveillance with Thermal Imaging Drones appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/night-time-drones-surveillance/

[4gdronecontrol]

DroneLab Case Study: Aerial Monitoring of COVID-19 Lockdowns, across India

How FlytNow Enabled Aerial Monitoring for Police Forces in India during COVID-19 Lockdowns

On 24th of March, 2020, owing to an increasing number of COVID-19 cases, the Government of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ordered a nationwide lock-down for a period of 21 days. The order followed a 14-hour voluntary curfew on 22nd of March, where the Hon’ble Prime Minister urged the citizens of the country to observe and maintain social distancing.

With 500 active cases by then, this decision was taken as a preventive measure to tackle the pandemic or as experts call it ‘to flatten the curve’ of the spread of novel coronavirus infections in India. The lock-down, a fallout of the measure, limited the movement of India’s 1.3 billion people.

Due to the restrictions on nearly all commercial operations, schools, colleges, and offices were quick to shut down and people were asked to carry out activities from the safety of their homes. All modes of transportation, except for emergency situations, were also brought to a staggering halt.

However, amidst this, one major challenge that the authorities faced, ever since the announcement, was to make people abide by the rules. Identifying people who violate the lockdown restrictions and instead move about freely (thus posing a threat of infection to others) became a daunting task for the police force.

Drones: India’s Ally in the Fight Against COVID-19

In order to show solidarity with this national priority and to provide the authorities with a set of extra eyes, various drone startups and hobbyists in India immediately extended their support in the fight against COVID-19. They soon formed a nationwide network and became active in almost all the states which had a relatively large number of infected cases: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, and Delhi NCR.

Local drone teams sprung into action to support local and state governments and to help ensure that drone flights are planned well, executed safely and logged correctly.

With help from these local teams, public safety authorities started relying on drones for aerial monitoring. Deployed in the bustling areas of the city, drones assisted police personnel to track and warn the people who violated lockdown norms. By providing situational awareness on a near real-time basis, drones enabled the police to make lockdown-related announcements and better organize their ground forces to monitor the situation in congested areas of the city.

Flattening The Curve in India

The primary objective of using drones was to prevent the rapid spread of COVID-19 thus flattening the curve of the infection, and apart from this, drones had to be used in a safe & secure manner without violating individual privacy.

To aid this mission, FlytBase supported the task force with its readily deployable solution, FlytNow in carrying out live, remote drone operations – from central command centers, thus involving the relevant stakeholders.

Success Story: How Drones Transformed Security & Patrols

In Gujarat, Dronelab worked alongside the state government to monitor public places and markets. Under their guidance, more than 200 drone operators were mobilized across different cities in Gujarat.

Initially following a decentralized approach, small teams operated independently in different cities and localities with the help from local police. But Dronelab soon realized that they have to move towards a centralized model since the primary objective of using these drones was to identify crowds and intimate police control rooms while the flight is still in process in order to take necessary action.

Employing the cloud-connected FlytNow solution, Dronelab, with the support from the Gujarat Police Department, established its first command center in the city of Ahmedabad. After a successful trial, the city police began using UAVs to monitor various parts of the city. FlytNow thus enabled the police to stream live multi-video feeds from all the drones to their control room thus enabling them to respond quickly to emergencies.

The system also allowed drone operators to help the police while being confined in their homes, eliminating the need to be present on the field. Whenever a request was triggered, operators could fly a drone from their home terrace and stream the video feed directly to the central dashboard.

According to Nikhil Methiya, Director of Dronelab, The “FlytNow solution has played an important role in our operations to mitigate the public health impact of COVID-19. It allowed us to deploy drones at scale, and features like live video streaming and guest-sharing helped us fulfill our aerial monitoring objectives while keeping the necessary authorities in the loop.”

In addition, the team at Dronelab also implemented an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system where drones could automatically identify public gatherings. Through rigorous research and testing, they came up with various social distancing models that they used to deploy the drones for monitoring.

Apart from monitoring and surveillance, drones were also used for the delivery of medical supplies in quarantine areas of the city and aerial disinfection with collaboration from local civic bodies.

Privacy & Security First

With any disruptive technology, there are always concerns with regards to privacy and security. In view of the policies on the protection of personal data in India, the idea of drones hovering above, 24×7, may have seemed daunting. To address this issue, Dronelab requested all drone operators to follow a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), as follows:

Drone operators are to use low definition footages so as to not to identify individuals or a community.

Drone operators are to delete any image or video that is violating human rights.

Groups conducting drone flights have to seek necessary permissions and coordinate with local authorities.

Drone operators are to inform the local community that they are conducting surveillance for their health and safety.

Operators are to follow all safety protocols related to personal, drone and community safety.

Help local authorities to plan emergency responses based on the drone data.

Should not store any form of data after the operations.

Drones as First Responders

Drones were a key ally in India’s fight against COVID-19. Public health & safety emergencies, such as this, are an ideal use case for drones because they can be quickly deployed to get live videos, issue warnings, identify crowds and even sense body temperature.

India has shown the world a future where the government and private sector can work together, to fight a pandemic and protect public health.

If you are interested in our solution, write to us at flytnow@flytbase.com or schedule a call with the FlytNow team.

The post DroneLab Case Study: Aerial Monitoring of COVID-19 Lockdowns, across India appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/dronelab-case-study/

[4gdronecontrol]

Using Drones to Maintain Social Distancing During a Lockdown

In the wake of the recent COVID-19 outbreak which has affected almost every nation, government organizations and law-enforcement agencies are in search of an effective solution to fight this pandemic with minimal human interaction.

Drones seem to be an appropriate solution to tackle this menace. Apart from the transportation of emergency medical & pharmaceutical supplies, health-kits and blood samples, these unmanned aerial vehicles can effectively aid authorities in administering a state of lockdown.

A report in South China Morning Post says, the Chinese government “has adapted and co-opted industrial drones to help ensure that an estimated 50 million residents are kept at home and indoors across a dozen cities.” A fleet of drones is estimated to replace the surveillance capacity and enforcement duties of more than 100 policemen operating in dozens of patrol vehicles across a 10 square kilometer radius.

3 ways in which FlytNow can help manage lockdowns

While the need for social distancing and self-quarantining has already been enforced by most of the local and national government bodies in the form of curfews or lockdowns, there lies a constant necessity to monitor public spaces, in order to make sure that people are at all times following the state-mandated orders.

Equipped with thermal sensors, HD zoom lenses, loudspeakers, beacons, and disinfectant spray jets, drones are playing a crucial role in arresting the spread of the deadly virus.

1. Remote Aerial Patrolling

As a response to the current public health crisis, drones powered with FlytNow can send ultra-low latency (<1 second) live-video feed over 4G/5G/LTE network to a cloud-based remotely operated COVID-19 command control center. The captured video streams can be further shared with stakeholders and decision-makers located anywhere across the world, to help monitor the overall social situation and take measures to control the crowd and maintain public safety.

Police authorities can autonomously capture data for a predefined/geofenced area of interest, or send the drone to specific GPS coordinates – on-demand during emergency situations. They can also combine and manage a fleet of drones with a variety of payloads, battery endurance, and capabilities. To operate 24×7, thermal camera scans can be integrated for night-time surveillance to detect a breach of lockdown protocols.

Drones equipped with high-definition cameras for a wide field of view, can monitor a large area including narrow roads and by-lanes and take appropriate action to curb overcrowding at several locations.

Taking advantage of the FlytDock precision-landing module, with centimeter-level accuracy, drones can be safely landed on any designated spot or even a moving vehicle, significantly reducing the risk of emergency personnel being infected by the pathogen.

Why use FlytNow:

Live HD video-feed at the remote station over 4G/LTE

Cover large area or city with fleet of drones

Remote gimbal control to pan/tilt drone camera to look around

Sharing live video feed with across police stations

Thermal camera integration for night surveillance

Automated patrol on regular intervals

2. Remote Crowd Management

Public authorities using FlytNow can use drones to monitor a large area for unauthorized human gathering, since human contact is the primary way in which the coronavirus is spreading.

Built-in features like geofencing, autonomous flight, and automatic movement detection, can help authorities to catch offenders during a routine autonomous FlytNow patrol with minimum human involvement. This will allow for easy control and management of a large area with a small number of drone operators.

Fitted with loudspeakers, drones can be deployed to issue advisories, share key information, warn the public against breaching restrictions or broadcast lockdown rules and regulations, to effectively monitor and calm a panic-stricken crowd.

Drone can be the first responders in the event of an emergency like a riot, and can de-escalate the situation using onboard attachments like a siren or remotely controlled non-lethal weapon. Both the drone and its attachment can be controlled from the FlytNow dashboard. Since FlytNow supports most major drone hardware platforms, authorities can use different kinds of drones based on the situation; for example, a combination of both heavy and light drones can be used.

Why use FlytNow:

Live video feed from drones at the operation center for remote monitoring.

Automatic movement detection

People and vehicle counting using AI.

Integration with loudspeakers or sirens to monitor the crowd.

3. Remote Public Announcements

In a lockdown situation where the communication channels also have been shut down, drones can be used to make important announcements in an area.

Using FlytNow, authorities can dispatch a fleet of drones, which will follow a predefined path, carrying a public address system. With a message played on a loop, a fleet of drones can cover a large area compared to traditional vehicles.

Why use FlytNow:

Broadcast audio message to a fleet of drones equipped with a loudspeaker

Automated flights on a regular interval

Remotely transmit a message to lockdown offenders

Cover large area with a fleet of drones

Drones in Action Around the World for COVID-19

Drones are already in action and law enforcement officials, across the world, are already using it. In Bengaluru, India, police are using drones to catch offenders who are disobeying the lockdown.

France has also deployed drones to enforce their lockdown. Police are running aerial patrols in the streets of Nice and warning the residents not to venture out of their homes.

China has gone a step further; they have deployed heavy drones equipped with special attachments to disinfect large swathes of lands by spraying chemicals in the air.

Conclusion

Drones are already at the forefront of the worldwide battle against COVID-19. At FlytNow, we want to support public health and safety stakeholders in every corner of this world, which is why we are providing the FlytNow Pro solution free of cost to people during the coming weeks.

Flytnow Pro takes care of the complexities of managing a large number of drones, so that health workers, police, firefighters, and other public safety personnel can focus on getting the job done.

Get free access to the FlytNow Pro, sign up at https://app.flytnow.com

References:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/03/05/meet-the-coronavirus-spy-drones-that-make-sure-you-stay-home/#431e8f951669

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/covid-19-drones-used-to-enforce-lockdown-more-booked-for-violating-prohibitory-orders/articleshow/74831906.cms

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-drones-france-covid-19-epidemic-pandemic-outbreak-virus-containment-2020-3?IR=T

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/three-ways-china-is-using-drones-to-fight-coronavirus/

The post Using Drones to Maintain Social Distancing During a Lockdown appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/drones-for-lockdown/

[4gdronecontrol]

Drones Help Authorities & Businesses Fight COVID-19

Aerial Monitoring, Medical Delivery, Emergency Response

COVID-19 i.e. the coronavirus disease has been aptly called the Black Swan of 2020 – a global contagion that will disrupt public health and the global economy. With social distancing turning out to be insufficient, governments across the world are moving to comprehensive lockdowns, likely for weeks if not months, in order to ‘flatten the curve’ and get this pandemic under control.

In these trying times, each company is striving to do its part in helping their employees, partners and customers cope. FlytBase, for our part, is making FlytNow Pro available for free (until at-least May 31, 2020) for customers who seek to deploy drones as an aid to help control the virus.

Safety via Autonomy

The most powerful weapon in the battle against COVID-19 is avoiding human-to-human contact. Drones can thus serve us well – when used remotely and autonomously. Whether monitoring public spaces via live video feeds, delivering medicines to the last mile, or aiding public safety personnel during incident response, autonomous drones can help minimize human interactions while ensuring that food, medicines and help reach people on time.

Monitoring of Public Spaces

Across the world, national and local governments have rapidly started closing public spaces – train & bus terminals, schools, colleges, airports, parks, malls – and soon even commercial offices and retail shops. Unfortunately, there remains a need to monitor and enforce such shutdowns, since not all members of the public are diligently adhering to social distancing and self-quarantines.

Drones, equipped with payloads such as beacons, loudspeakers and sirens, can thus serve as a public safety aid – sending live video feeds to COVID-19 control centers, warning people of the need to stay indoors, and perhaps even spraying disinfectants! Thermal cameras mounted on drones, and controlled remotely via FlytNow, can automatically identify crowds, which can then be quickly dispersed to minimize human-to-human transmission of the virus. Such low-latency video streams can be shared with stakeholders across geographies to help monitor the overall social situation, and make informed decisions about shutdowns, crowd control and public safety.

Food & Medicine Delivery

With health workers directly exposed to the virus, drone service providers can use FlytNow to deliver medicines, first aid kits and other emergency supplies – to homes as well as hospitals. Via 4G connectivity, drones and their payloads can be remotely controlled – such missions can be planned and launched from cloud-based dashboards, accessible to multiple stakeholders. Live video streams in the FlytNow dashboard can help confirm medical deliveries, and the recipients can participate in flight planning and monitoring, in a remote yet secure manner.

At a time when supply chains are getting disrupted, remote and/or rural populations need to be proactively assisted with daily supplies. Drones are an ideal solution for this urgent need – via EVLOS and BVLOS operations that can be remotely planned, controlled and monitored using FlytNow. Even in urban areas, public health officials are strongly encouraging e-commerce and delivery of daily provisions, instead of people visiting supermarkets, restaurants and pharmacies.

Emergency Response

First responders, whether police, firefighters or health workers, now need to be themselves protected against the virus during incident response. Sending drones before people must become an integral part of such operations – powered by FlytNow capabilities such as fleet management, precision landing, autonomous charging, video recording, dual-camera feeds and airspace compliance.

With the pandemic expected to last a while, public safety officials will have to plan for emergency response (with minimal involvement of humans) during floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

FlytBase, Inc. salutes, and wishes well, all those involved in this mammoth exercise – our doctors, nurses, aid workers, public servants, first responders, and many other selfless and brave volunteers. We are keen to do our part by leveraging autonomous drone technology to mitigate the adverse effects of the novel coronavirus.

Get started with FlytNow Pro for free, to help your employees, customers, partners and the general public tackle COVID-19 safely.

The post Drones Help Authorities & Businesses Fight COVID-19 appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/drones-help-authorities-businesses-fight-covid-19/

[4gdronecontrol]

Securely Share Live Drone Video Feed with Team and Clients

FlytNow Guest Link Sharing offers the capability to share live drone video feed and telemetry with teammates and clients. Scroll down for the step-by-step tutorial.

Remote Private Access to Drone Fleet, Live Video Feed & Telemetry

  Enterprises worldwide are scaling their drone operations, as cost-effective drones become available off-the-shelf, and cloud-based SaaS solutions drive intelligent automation. One of the key drivers of drone fleet adoption is the ability for a variety of stakeholders to participate in drone missions. For example, inspection of a wind turbine may involve on-site visual observers, remote subject-matter experts, safety managers from regional offices, R&D teams from corporate offices, technology partners – and even UAV regulators who seek insights into such missions before granting waivers for unmanned flights.

Live, remote drone operations thus require not only low-latency, high-quality video feeds, but also the ability to seamlessly share such video streams across people, geographies, devices and networks. In fact, enterprise drone programs tend to involve a variety of drone hardware – including off-the-shelf drones like DJI Mavic 2 Pro, Mavic 2 Enterprise, Matrice 210/210RTK, M600 Pro, etc., for day-to-day operations and custom drones built using DJI A3, Pixhawk or Cube based autopilots with high-end sensors for rare but critical use-cases.

User-level Access to Drone Missions

Given that privacy and security remain amongst the top concerns in the global drone ecosystem, enterprises have to carefully manage access to drone telemetry, live video streams, navigation, and payloads. With multiple, remote participants in each mission, fine-grained access – based on the roles and responsibilities of each participant – becomes central to successful drone operations.

Guest Link Sharing

It can be argued that many drone operations would be significantly more productive if secure, mission-wise remote viewing can be made available, over the Internet, via a user-friendly interface. Whether it’s a drone service provider monitoring construction sites or whether it’s the in-house drone operations manager supporting his/her colleagues for inspection of infrastructure assets, the access to live video streams – securely & remotely – can create immediate business value by enabling subject-matter experts to make better-informed decisions.

In fact, not only can remote viewers be empowered to access live video feeds in real-time, but remote operators can be given control of the drone, camera gimbal and payloads, with the on-site team serving as safety pilots and visual observers. Automating such live, remote drone operations then becomes the logical next step in the evolution and maturing of enterprise drone programs.

Drone Videos on Mobile Phones

Given the pervasiveness of mobile phones and tablets across businesses in all sectors, it is but natural for drone mission participants to expect these devices to be an integral part of the overall system. This is now easily possible via enterprise-grade mobile apps that can be easily customized, white-labeled and configured – making drone telemetry & videos extremely portable, especially in areas with robust 4G/LTE/5G networks.

  Share Live Map Views, Drone Fleet Location, and other Mission-critical Data

Remote access for ‘guest’ participants in drone missions need not be limited to video – since live map views can also be seamlessly shared over the cloud, showing guest viewers the waypoints, flight paths, obstacles, etc. for each mission. Third-party maps can be integrated to overlay drone missions on satellite imagery, specific drones/payloads can provide IR/thermal camera views to remote stakeholders, and missions such as parcel delivery can be remotely monitored not only over the last-mile but all the way to the ‘doorstep’.

Aerial video streaming is thus becoming the core of drone operations for operators, service providers, system integrators and large enterprises – with secure, user-level access for remote participants the ‘killer app’ of this technology.

  Tutorial: How to share live drone video feed and map view using FlytNow

  Step 1: Log in to your FlytNow account and connect your drone to the application. Follow the FlytNow getting started guide if you are a first time user.

Step 2: Click on the “Share” icon on the video box or button in the Cockpit view

Step 3: Click on “Create new link” to generate a link

Step 4: Enter your teammate’s or client’s valid email address with whom you wish to share video & map view and click “Send” Note:

Choose appropriate options for view and drone access.

You may enter multiple email addresses

Step 5: Teammate or Client receives an email with a link and Secure PIN

Step 6: Click on the “View Operation” and enter the Secure Pin. Your teammate or client can now securely access live drone feed and telemetry.

For any questions, you may  write to us on info@flytbase.com or visit http://forums.flytbase.com/c/flytnow

The post Securely Share Live Drone Video Feed with Team and Clients appeared first on FlytNow.

source https://flytnow.com/sharing-live-drone-video-streams-securely/