A new vertical launch UAV of the Ukrainian company Culver Aviation is presented
It is part of a complex of base stations for 6 aircraft with a range of up to 45 km
As part of the Commercial UAV Expo 2022 international exhibition in Las Vegas, the Ukrainian technology company Culver Aviation for the first time publicly presented its new revolutionary product Menatir — a system of automated monitoring of the earth’s surface using UAVs.
Menatir is a network of base stations in the form of standard containers with unmanned aerial vehicles placed inside. Containers protect aircraft, ensure their launch, landing, mission performance, as well as charging and transfer of data collected by them — and all this in automatic mode. The system is suitable for the tasks of fire, road, environmental, communal and infrastructure services. After all, Menatir makes it possible to comprehensively monitor any objects from the air in real time around the clock. And to manage the system, regardless of the number of base stations in the network, only one specialist is needed from anywhere in the world.
‘Our solution has no analogues in terms of automation and scalability. This is a new approach to working with UAVs and data. Businesses and government structures will be able to continuously receive and process information in an automatic mode with minimal human involvement and make the right management decisions. With Menatir, it is 30% cheaper than with traditional unmanned systems and helicopters,’ says Oleksandr Danylenko, CEO of Culver Aviation and the author of the project.
UAV Menatir.
For this project, the company developed a unique Menatir UAV with vertical take-off and landing. On one charge, an unmanned aircraft can fly up to 45 km in one direction and return. The base station contains up to 6 such drones. One of several types of payload can be placed on the Menatir UAV:
- video camera
- video camera with a thermal imager
- digital camera
- multispectral camera
- echo sensor
- any custom equipment that meets the specified dimensions and weight.
Menatir UAV equipment.
Menatir can be used for video surveillance of any objects in HD quality, aerial photography for creating orthophoto plans of the area, monitoring the state of crops, forests, water bodies, preventing landscape fires, analyzing the state of air quality and other real-time tasks.
To cover large areas, the system can be scaled to any number of containers, which are installed so as to overlap each other’s reach zones. Drones will be able to move freely between network stations, and it will take no more than 20 minutes to fly to any of the coverage points. In case of bad weather in the area of one of the containers or in the case of force majeure, the overlapping zones will allow to lift another UAV into the air and continue the task.
It takes 3 minutes from receiving the command to the departure of the plane. Each container has its own weather station, which will protect the UAV: the system will stop the flight mission and the aircraft will return to the container in case of bad weather.
Placement of UAVs in containers.
Data collected by drones is processed and analyzed by specialized software with elements of artificial intelligence — Drone Management System. The system sends the stages of execution and the results of flight missions to network users, in particular, through a mobile application.
Culver Aviation is a Ukrainian technology company that provides services based on data from the Earth’s surface, collected using UAVs of its own development and the best technological solutions. Main areas: agriculture and forestry, mining and energy industry, land management and emergency protection.
