New Fixed-Wing Drone from Sentera for Agriculture, Surveys, Search and Rescue

“Our customers depend on us to provide user-friendly drone solutions to collect the data they need at a price that makes sense,” remarked Todd Colten, chief aerospace engineer for Sentera. “The Phoenix is a complete professional solution for the quick collection of highly accurate and detailed data – from crop health, to volumetric measurements, to search and rescue operations.”

Weighing in at four pounds with an oversized motor, the Phoenix can be hand-launched.  The Phoenix can fly up to an hour  at 35 mph speeds, covering large areas quickly.  The autopilot ensures precision, constantly auto-calculating according to the grid pattern specified to ensure data collection meets exact specifications. Live digital video allows the operator to monitor the ground from the sky in real time.

“Agronomists, crop consultants, and growers fly their fields multiple times throughout a growing season, looking for comparative data,” commented Colten. “The Phoenix is a great solution for these crop scouting missions since it can be programmed to fly the exact same pattern multiple times, ensuring data comparability.”

The small, light drone is the next generation of the proven Sentera Phoenix fixed-wing platform. To optimize industry solutions, Sentera developed three distinct Phoenix variants:

• Phoenix Pro: Ideal for precision agriculture and mapping activities
  
• Phoenix MS: Perfect for advanced volumetric readings
• Phoenix LE: Designed for public safety missions

The Phoenix offers users a variety of sensors for mission versatility. It accepts multiple swappable sensors, including the Sentera Double 4K Sensor, providing true RGB and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data, in a single flight. The Sentera Quad Sensor, a multispectral imager with red edge capabilities is also popular in agriculture applications. And, the Sentera Thermal sensor which quickly builds high-resolution true temperature maps.

With a cruise speed of 35 mph and up to a 59-minute endurance, the Phoenix is capable of covering broad areas that other drones of the same size cannot. In an hour, the Phoenix can collect data from over 700 acres, this is nearly two times more efficient than competitive offerings. Faster data capture means users spend less time in the field and more time focusing on data analysis, determining solutions, and taking action.

While the Phoenix quickly captures data with remarkably little effort, ground sampling distance is under 1.5 inches per pixel at 400 feet. Phoenix sensor payloads are specifically designed for drone applications and automatically geotag all images with millisecond precision, no geotag post processing required. This means more accurate and faster data analysis.

The Phoenix solution offerings include the aircraft, ground datalink and software, application-specific sensor, batteries, chargers, hard-sided case, and software AgVault and OnTop web, mobile, and desktop software allows for real time reading of imagery and the ability to get data off the field for further analysis and discussion.

The product is being featured at AUVSI 2017 in the Dynamic UAV Solutions booth #2940 and is available through Sentera’s reseller network.

Here is a video courtesy of Sentera. To learn more, visit Sentera’s website.