Altus Intelligence LiDAR installations
Simon Morris – Altus Intelligence
The end of March was a very busy time for the Altus Intelligence crew in Georgia. In the space of 5 days Lidars from two manufacturers had to be mounted and tested to Altus ORC2 electric helicopter systems. Luckily for these customers, this is just the kind of thing we take in our stride and have been able to do time and again. Integrating new payloads is certainly nothing new and we pride ourselves on being not just a manufacturer of excellent UAS but an accomplished custom shop as well.
First of all we had two Riegl Vux-1 Mini with dual camera systems to mount for Juniper Unmanned of Colorado. This constitutes a payload in excess of 11 pounds when you add up a scanner, IMU, camera, cabling, etc. With batteries onboard and ready to fly that takes the total takeoff weight of these units pretty close to 40lb.
The second integration was once again onboard a new ORC2 but this time with a Lidar USA
Scanlook system featuring the Velodyne HDL32. This Lidar unit belongs to Skytec LLC of Tennessee, and had previously been mounted to
their Altus LRX industrial multirotor aircraft. The ORC2 represents a significant upgrade in performance and endurance for their scanning work, while still carrying the crucial emergency parachute system that ensures both public safety and insurance for their Lidar investment. Opting for the familiar “Shamu” color scheme we think that Skytec’s ORC2 definitely looks the business and is going to serve them exceptionally well with their commercial scanning work.
Thanks to both Skytec and Juniper for their continued support of Altus and our technology. We have and will continue to enjoy working with you to support your existing systems and ensuring you have ongoing success in your commercial unmanned aerial applications.
Coming soon we have an integration planned for yet another Lidar system by another manufacturer that we’re excited to be working with. Some developments on the helicopter system are in the pipeline too that we’re sure folks are going to be excited about.
And especially exciting for me we’re doing an integration of a gimballed PhaseOne iXU 50 megapixel medium format camera on another helicopter for a customer too.
