High-flying drone business QuestUAV enters the South Korean marketplace
With 16 years’ experience as an RAF helicopter pilot, Nigel King was a natural choice when Northumbria University was looking for a specialist to operate its newly purchased drone.
“They had bought one, but didn’t know how to fly it,” he recalled.
“I became the chief pilot, but looking at the equipment, felt I could do a better job.”
From there, he built the prototype that would pave the way for QuestUAV Ltd, a Northumberland company focused on sub-7kg fixed-wing unmanned aircraft.
Since launching around five years ago, the business has, so to speak, taken off, doubling turnover year-on-year to break £1m in 2014.
It’s also earned a host of innovation awards for its wide of array of services, which include everything from manufacturing and retail to R&D.
Naturally, exports have played a large role, with markets including New Zealand, the US, Canada and now South Korea, where the company is making a major impression.
South Korea represents the largest UAV market outside the UK and US – and the sector to expected to grow by up to £0.5bn within the next four years.
It’s also, as Nigel points out, a “powerhouse” in cutting edge technology, and hence the business was keen to seize all available opportunities there.
In May this year, the firm forged a partnership with HOJUNG Solutions Co., and by August, the companies were engaged in training and certification for a survey bid to LX Land and Geospacial Information Corporation, South Korea’s governmental survey organisation.
“They set up a test area and invited all the fixed wing global players to undertake a high resolution geospacial survey so they could find out how accurate each competitor could be and how usable their technology was,” Nigel said. “We came in at the last minute and swept up effectively.
“The Koreans are really up on what technology should provide – much more so than in Europe and this is reflected in their verification standards.
“In the UK, we have CAA, but they don’t even look at that; it’s not high enough. On average, it takes six months for verification of equipment. We managed to pass it within two weeks.”
As a result of its performance, QuestUAV won the bid to work with LX on its projects for the next few years.
While this was good news in itself, however, there were further pleasant surprises to come.
“We were also awarded a contract for a 300km road survey,” Nigel said. “That had already been given to an Australian contractor, but it became apparent that we would do a much better job, so it was given to us instead.”
The project, among other things, was designed to give government departments the opportunity to monitor illegal land use in the areas surrounding the road networks.
Prior to its commencement, QuestUAV spent two weeks out in South Korea, preparing equipment and training crews on how to use it.
The work itself involved the UAVs taking high resolution imagery from altitude, as chase vehicles followed the route on the roads being surveyed.
The images were then processed to form highly precise 3D maps that can be navigated and paused upon points of interest.
“Different kinds of drones have specific applications,” Nigel said.
“But when you need something to work over a longer range, perhaps in remote conditions, that’s when fixed wing really comes into its own.
“We what operate are unmanned aircraft – or ‘smart drones’. You launch it and it will take its programmed route and respond accordingly in certain situations, before coming down to land.
“It does it all autonomously, but at any stage an operator can break into the system and take control.
“That’s entirely different to the average drone purchased on the high street, although the public is not generally aware of that.”
All of QuestUAV’s drones and pilots are CAA-certified and, while Nigel believes many of the current concerns about drones have little applicability to professional use, he is an advocate of legislation that supports the highest standards of safety.
QuestUAV, in fact, has long been something of a thought leader on the subject and so impressed were the Korean authorities with its rigorous approach that the company has been named as the reference standard for fixed wing UAVs in the country.
“We excel at innovative designs, which we have developed into commercially successful UAV products over the course of this year and will continue into next,” Nigel added.
“South Korea represents a clearly defined region of market expansion for us, and local partners have worked alongside us to get our capabilities recognised at the highest levels.”
Aside from the South Korean project, QuestUAV, which recently opened a sales and marketing base at The Core in Newcastle’s Science Central, remains sought-after as a research partner, working with wide range of universities.
Its technology also a huge role to play in areas like agriculture, particularly when it comes to crop production.
Other successes include work at a plantation in the Philippines, where a 3D model was used to form the basis for an improved irrigation system, which reduced the level of soil run-off from 200 tonnes per hectare to 16.
Likewise, in Rio, Brazil, the company is involved in a two-year project, helping mitigate the results of ecological disaster caused by a burst dam.
“Our main competitors are the Swiss and the Dutch and here we are in the North East,” Nigel said.
“We’re doing this successful and its just a huge score for the region. We have to keep on banging on about the fact that we’re here.
“The North East has got a strong focus on this within the UK and I think it’s really important that we shout about it.
“I think we’re the leaders, but there some other really good developments happening here alongside us.”
He added that Quest UAV had big plans for expansion, but that achieve them the business, which had grown organically, would have to secure external funding.
“To be a truly effective company now, we need to grow our headcount from 14 currently to almost 60,” he said. “There is so much that needs commercialisation.”
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/business/business-news/high-flying-drone-business-questuav-10598936
