Every year, the Commercial UAV Expo kicks off with one of its most unique and exciting events with their Outdoor Flying Demo. Hundreds of attendees gathered at Cornerstone Park in Henderson, Nevada for a chance to see a handful of exhibitors show off their UAVs’ capabilities live and in-person. This year, once again Sundance Media Group helped organize and support the event and Frontier Precision was the primary sponsor, making it possible for the event to be put together.
Frontier Precision, who can be found at booth 501 on the conference floor, is an employee-owned company with over 35 years of experience serving survey, mapping, engineering, construction, GIS, drones/UAS, forensics, law enforcement, forestry, water resources, mosquito & vector control, and natural resources professionals throughout the western United States. Frontier Precision Unmanned is a part of that business, focused of course on drones as well as other uncrewed vehicles.
Along with their sponsorship of the event, Frontier Precision took part in two separate demonstrations to show the various hardware they provide to their customers. Up first, they showcased Quantum System’s Trinity Pro eVTOL drone complete with a Phase One (booth 809) payload. Later in the morning, attendees were able to see Freefly Systems’ (booth 403) Alta X with YellowScan’s (booth 1131) new bathymetric lidar scanner, the Navigator, for a payload.
During the event, Commercial UAV News spoke with Frontier Precision’s President and CEO Dennis Kemmesat. He said the company wanted to sponsor this event, noting, “It’s always a great crowd, and it gives us the best opportunity to get in front of a large number of people and show the various platforms we have and the diversity of the platforms.”
In addition to Frontier Precision’s demonstrations, six other companies showed off their UAVs for the crowd. Aerialoop (booth 827) was up first, showing off their delivery UAV, the ALT6-50 D. The company uses their drones for both delivery and surveillance. For the former, they described themselves as “middle mile” delivery, connecting two sections of a city before a truck can complete the last mile delivery. Aerialoop delivers everything from food to parcels to medical supplies, and attendees were able to see both this drone in action as well as a video feed of deliveries in Ecuador, where the company is headquartered.
Inspired Flight (817) then took their turn, flying their IF800 quadcopter drone. Attendees saw footage from a variety of sensors, with the hot-swapping payload feature of the dovetail mount to the Sony ILX-LR1 sensor. On top of the live footage, Inspired Flight demonstrated new features in their software, Inspired Ground Control, which included improved mission planning capabilities and other user experience-focused improvements.
Later, GeoCue (booth 417) showed off their TrueView LiDAR capabilities in forensic car crash investigations. Using a mock accident scene, they were able to showcase how their systems can fly through and capture key data for photogrammetric and 3D point cloud analysis. While the drone was flying overhead, they also demonstrated on the ground their new TrueView GO, a handheld mobile scanner with SLAM and GNSS capabilities. All attendees are able to check out the combined data at the GeoCue booth back at the Caesar’s Forum.
After a brief intermission, Xer Technologies (1232) brought the demonstration back together to show their X8 heavy duty drone. With a hybrid engine, the X8 is capable of long flights – up to two-and-a-half hours with a three kilogram payload. Despite its large stature compared to other drones, its foldable arms allow for easy transportation as demonstrated on-site. The X8, attendees learned, is used for everything from powerline inspections to search & rescue and surveying and mapping.
Multicopter Warehouse (booth 753)had the penultimate demonstration, sharing their time with representatives from Phoenix Lidar. Multicopter Warehouse, which provides drones from a number of manufacturers, brought the DJI Matrice 350, which boasted Phoenix Lidar’s Recon XT for a payload. Together, the duo showed how they can provide full end-to-end knowledge and workflow, including with Phoenix Lidar’s software for post-processing, analysis, and sharing, along with Multicopter Warehouse’s expertise across platforms.
Finally, the event was closed out with the Wingtra (booth 947) One Gen II, a fixed-wing VTOL drone, used primarily for surveying and mapping. For this demonstration, attendees had the opportunity to see how quickly users can get to work at a job site. Wingtra started with the UAV in its closed case, and demonstrated live the entire process of putting things together through the launch, all in the matter of just a few minutes. Wingtra also showed their manual landing capabilities for situations when the take-off area is no longer accessible after a mission.
Overall, the Outdoor Flying Demos were once again a phenomenal opportunity to see first-hand how these drones operate and the many functions they can perform, serving as a perfect way to open this event.
“This show has been really great to us since we started here, and we wanted to increase our presence here,” said Kemmesat. “We’re always happy to support it and do whatever we can to help it be successful.”
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