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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Military Tech Available in Civilian Drone

AeroVironment Inc. plans to starting selling its first drone for civilian customers in the spring. The Quantix is a four-propeller aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and can be operated by an Android tablet. The device was designed to be as easy to use as possible while collecting images with special sensors. Steve Gitlin, a spokesman for AeroVironment, said the new aircraft is an extension of the company’s past performance supplying drones to the U.S. military. The target market includes energy companies, utilities, farmers and construction firms. “It allows us to show the benefits of our track record of leadership in the defense market to commercial customers and bring drone technology to a lot of businesses that are going to benefit from it,” Gitlin said. AeroVironment, in Monrovia, designs, manufactures and tests its unmanned aircraft in Simi Valley. The company has not announced the Quantix’s price, but Gitlin said it would be competitive with other commercial drones. Models on the market range from about $10,000 to $40,000. The company has been in the small drone business for more than a decade. The nation’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq sped up the company’s development of more sophisticated air vehicles, which resulted in the Raven, Puma and Wasp – hand-launched drones used for short reconnaissance flights. AeroVironment has been chomping at the bit to get into the commercial market but had to wait until the Federal Aviation Administration released its rules on the operations of drones weighing less than 55 pounds. Those rules became effective in August. The Quantix differs from the military-grade drones in several ways. First, it isn’t hand-launched as the Puma, Lynx and Raven aircraft are. Instead it takes off from the ground like a helicopter and once at a certain altitude, its propellers rotate to allow the craft to fly horizontally, Gitlin said. The Quantix also carries different sensors and cameras, which produce different data than the military drones, he said. “It is not video; it is a high-resolution stitched image,” Gitlin explained. Data collected can sense changes in vegetation, landscape and infrastructure and has a software that analyzes those changes. AeroVironment has been engaged with potential commercial customers for years prior to the FAA setting the drone rules. What the company learned from them is they were less interested in real-time video capture than the ability to manage data assets more efficiently, effectively and safely, Gitlin said. To that end, the Quantix was developed for maximum data collection with minimum effort. The users do not need to be drone or sensor experts to operate it. “Unlike the military, commercial customers, whether they are energy companies, utilities or farmers, are busy doing lots of other things and don’t necessarily have the time and availability to go through a two-week training program that we provide to our defense customers,” Gitlin said. – Mark R. Madler

Mark Madler
Mark Madler
Mark R. Madler covers aviation & aerospace, manufacturing, technology, automotive & transportation, media & entertainment and the Antelope Valley. He joined the company in February 2006. Madler previously worked as a reporter for the Burbank Leader. Before that, he was a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago and several daily newspapers in the suburban Chicago area. He has a bachelor’s of science degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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