Chinese drone maker GDU has introduced a rainproof industrial drone that includes an infrared camera for inspection of power lines, oil pipes and wind turbines, as well as surveying infrastructure, security surveillance, construction site mapping and crop monitoring.
The SAGA drone announced at CES 2019, which is taking place this week in Las Vegas, can carry a load of up to 2.2 pounds and features an HD 4K camera, a 10X and 30X optical zoom camera and an infrared camera. GDU said the drone is an open-platform design, which allows businesses to customize design, payload and computing.
The drone is wind-resistant and rainproof and features an infrared camera for both extreme cold and heat. Source: GDUThe drone is wind-resistant, rainproof and the infrared camera can detect heat signatures between negative 20 K to 150 K with a 20 mK noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD), so it can be used in extreme heat or cold, GDU said.
Other features of the SAGA drone include:
- GPS-based outdoor hovering
- Binocular stereo vision flight functions
- Flight time of up to 39 minutes
- Target tracking to identify targets at a specific distance
- Ascent speed of up to 5 m/s with a flight altitude of more than 3,500 m and a horizontal flight speed of 15 m/s
At CES, GDU will showcase SAGA in a cage at its booth, demonstrating its infrared sensors stabilized by a three-axis gimbal. The company will show the infrared capabilities by revealing hidden objects behind a screen.
“Our vision was to develop a quicker, lightweight aircraft for all types of industrial applications which we have realized in SAGA,” said Jack Gu, CTO and director of GDU’s R&D department. “The idea is that anything you want on an open platform we can work with you to develop your ideal payload.”
The GDU flight app enables functions such as flight control, picture taking and video recording, route planning, parameter setting, real-time flight weather conditions and more.
