Evolving Drone Technology Uses and Applications with Emesent

The Smart City Podcasts, pioneered by ARC Advisory Group, delves into all aspects of smart cities. In this podcast, ARC’s Senior Consultant Rick Rys, interviews Stefan Hrabar, CEO and Founder of Emesent, headquartered in Brisbane, Australia.  The company helps to collect data in very challenging areas for asset inspection and maintenance. Through its solutions, the collection and analysis of data are automated in challenging GPS-denied environments, delivering efficiency, safety, and operational insights to underground mining and other industries. Its core areas of expertise are drone autonomy, SLAM (simultaneous location and mapping)-based LiDAR mapping, and data analytics. The discussion centered on the technological landscape of drones, LiDAR imaging, all its applications, and Emesent’s flagship technology – Hovermap. This blog captures the key points of their discussion, to listen to the complete podcast click here. 

Data Capture: Challenges and Advances

Traditionally, data capture was LiDAR-based on a tripod, moving around a particular area, taking independent scans, and then combining it all together. Tripod-based scanning had a few drawbacks:

• Time-consuming
• Difficult to access some areas
• Hard to get complete coverage

“Recently there's been advances in SLAM, and there are a couple of SLAM-based solutions, which allow you to do LiDAR on mapping while moving. So, there’s no need to set up a tripod,” said Stefan. SLAM can be used on drones, but the downside in the past was that an expert pilot was needed to fly the drone. There are certain limitations on the use of drones, which Hovermap helps overcome. 

Drones and Hovermap

Stefan explained that drones are used quite extensively for many applications, but typical drones don't have higher levels of autonomy. Hence, those drones cannot be flown in complex environments or where there's no GPS. Hovermap attempts to address those problems and solve them by doing SLAM-based mapping on a drone and using the LiDAR data in real-time to provide autonomy for the drone. Hovermap provides autonomous navigation and collision avoidance, which provides the ability to fly the drone into these very challenging GPS-denied environments. 

What is Hovermap?

Hovermap is a plug-and-play payload, which is mounted onto an existing drone. Emesent doesn’t build the drone, it works with third-party drone providers and Hovermap is a payload. Stefan explained that it’s platform-independent and as it’s designed as a plug and play device it can be used in different ways. It's compatible with the DJI Enterprise drones (M 300 and the M 210), and the Acecore Zoe drone, which is just a pixel autopilot. But you can also take it off the drone and use it as a standalone SLAM-based scanning device. It could be used indoors or outdoors - you could walk around with it mounted on a backpack or mounted on a vehicle.

The built-in LiDAR technology in Hovermap has many advantages vs. photogrammetry:
•    It’s a direct measure, not an inferred one – measures a pulse of light in the time of flight.
•    Spherical field of view simplifies the data capture aspect.  
•    Results are more accurate and precise.
•    LiDAR is better at penetrating through a forest canopy/foliage.
•    Processing time for LiDAR data is quicker. 

“Underground mining is probably the biggest market vertical where Hovermap is used,” said Stefan. And the key benefit in those environments and in others is safety with collision avoidance. This means that the drone can fly around complex structures without being concerned about colliding with them. However, there are many areas like underneath the bridge or in the downtown area, in between buildings where it would typically be hard to fly a drone; or when you lose the GPS signal/can't maintain a line of sight. So, autonomy addresses those problems and enables repeatability of data capture. 

Customers are using Hovermap for three broad areas or use cases: surveys, inspection, and generating digital twins. The pandemic has accelerated the demand for digitalization for remote operations and inspections. 

Regulatory Compliance

Regulatory compliance for flying a drone is mandatory and varies in every country, said Stefan. The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and similar bodies around the world do regulate the use of drones and for very good reasons - obviously, they're trying to keep air traffic safe. And in most cases, environments like underground mining are not covered by regulatory bodies.