The flight time of Responder, a rotary wing robotic aircraft system, has been upgraded from 25 minutes to 40 minutes, with an additional reserve of 5 minutes for safety and battery longevity. This is a significant improvement, and provides much greater operational flexibility.
This upgrade is due to a change in the capacity of batteries that are used to power Responder. Flight testing was completed with the new batteries in a Responder that was equipped with a 1.2kg Nikon D800 in the customizable gimbal. The results were outstanding.
“Responder has the best capability on the market for robustness, payload capacity, weather and wind performance,” states ING Robotic Aviation’s CEO/CTO, Ian Glenn. “This again shows that we are working tirelessly towards providing our customers with the best tools possible.”
Responder is a robust and responsive platform that is optimal for almost any mapping, inspection, or monitoring application in the oil and gas, utilities, precision agriculture, and public safety industries. Thanks to its light weight gimbal camera mount, the Responder has tremendous flexibility. The system is able to carry a number of high end sensor payloads, up to 12kg in weight, in order to best fit the end user’s needs. Additionally, the Responder outperforms its competitors in terms of performance in high winds and weather, being able to safely withstand 65 km/h wind speeds. With this new advancement in flight time, Responder will be able to perform services and carry sensors even longer than before.
