ZenaDrone, a subsidiary of the technology firm ZenaTech, has announced that it is launching an “early wildfire detection system,” based around the company’s ZenaDrone 1000 drone.

In a statement, ZenaDrone said that it plans to test the system “with a prospective California business customer seeking to protect its 400-acre rural outdoor tourist attraction business from wildfires.” For the tests, the company will “deploy multiple ZenaDrone 1000 drones for evaluating and testing fire detection performance across various environmental and terrain conditions.”

If tests are successful, “the system will be fully deployed by the potential customer by Q4 in a Drone as a Service (DaaS) subscription model revenue solution,” ZenaDrone said.

Central to this effort is the ZenaDrone 1000. An autonomous vehicle with a “VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) quadcopter design,” the ZenaDrone 1000 has eight rotors on two fixed wings and measures 12x7 feet. According to ZenaDrone, the UAV incorporates “innovative software technology, AI, sensors, and purpose-built attachments, along with rugged and compact hardware featuring foldable wings enabling the drone to fit into the back of a truck.”

ZenaDrone said that the vehicle is well suited for wildfire operations as it is “engineered to detect early-stage heat signatures and smoke—particularly at night—enabling emergency teams to act before a spark can grow into a devastating blaze while also minimizing human patrol costs to monitor grounds.”

Source: ZenaDrone