Topcon introduces rotary-wing UAS for Europe

Topcon Positioning Group announces the addition of a rotary-wing unmanned aerial system (UAS) to its mass data collection solutions line for the European marketplace. The Falcon 8 - powered by Ascending Technologies - is designed for inspection and monitoring, as well as survey and mapping applications.

“Rotary-wing systems provide the perfect solutions for small-scale sites and projects for which flexibility of takeoff and landing or an oblique perspective is required,” said Francois Erceau, vice president of the Topcon GeoPositioning Solutions Group in Europe. “The Falcon 8 offers the flexibility to maneuver in small spaces and can cope with challenging environments often presented in inspection and monitoring. It is also well suited for smaller mapping or modeling projects up to 35 hectares that require high-resolution imaging.”

The Falcon 8 features new AscTec®Trinity technology, an autopilot safety feature that provides three levels of redundancy for protection against performance drop or loss of control. Three IMUs (inertial measurement units) synchronise all sensing data and identify, signal and compensate when needed.

Two models are available - the GeoEXPERT for surveying, modeling and mapping projects, and InspectionPRO for industrial inspection and monitoring applications. The GeoEXPERT includes an HD RGB camera payload, while the InspectionPRO features an HD RGB camera and infrared sensor combination.

“Both versions offer easy deployment and operation with real-time video and data monitoring capability, navigation software for planning and optimising flights, as well as photo-tagging and post-processing desktop software to quickly generate high-quality and easy-to-edit material,” said Erceau.

The Falcon 8 complements the Topcon Sirius Pro a fixed-wing UAS, providing large area accurate mapping without the requirement for traditional ground control.

www.topconpositioning.eu

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First Scottish Council to Adopt Yotta Horizons Aims to Boost Highways Maintenance Efficiency

North Ayrshire Council has become the first user in Scotland of Yotta’s Horizons visualised asset management platform. The cloud based solution will provide access to a wide range of highway asset inventory information. This will help to further improve the accuracy of financial returns and identify the costs associated with the maintenance of the road asset. Horizons will also be used to support existing maintenance prioritisation and cost projection tools. The Scottish Council will be able to enhance its ability to effectively target resources and forecast long term budgets based on a range of criteria, including actual road condition, strategic importance and assistance to other priorities and service areas, for example.

Yotta has worked closely with North Ayrshire Council for many years, undertaking a comprehensive inventory data collection exercise as far back as 2009. Using advanced vehicle based video surveying equipment and techniques, Yotta created a comprehensive and accurate inventory of core assets. The data contains information on the carriageway, footway, street lighting and street furniture.

This data will be stored, accessed and analysed using the Horizons platform together with additional information about the road network, including other survey data, accident data and the Council’s prioritisation criteria. Horizons will also hold information pertaining to road network complaints, faults and claims, and where the network provides support to other priorities, for example schools, medical centres, public transport services and town centres.

Horizons is a visualised Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) asset management platform designed to make it easier for asset managers to visualise, manage and optimise all their asset management strategies and records in a unique and effective way, using a single cloud-based solution. Since launching to market in 2012, Horizons has revolutionised asset management across a range of applications and is now used by around 50 local authorities in addition to service partners and maintenance contractors. In 2014 Yotta launched Horizons internationally, and has already achieved successful implementations in Europe and beyond.

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