Autonomous drone developer Percepto this week announced three regulatory milestones—completing the certifications and a test flight phase that take the Israeli company a step closer to FAA Certification, countrywide EVLOS in Australia and BLOS in Norway.
“The completion of the D&R testing phase is a major achievement in the Type Certification process for Percepto and for the Type Certification (TC) of UAS in general,” a company statement noted. “Percepto is pursuing its second TC approval which will include full Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flights, allowing [autonomous drone] remote operations for its customers. Receiving the first Type Certification for Percepto’s drone-in-a-box solution will prove Percepto Sparrow reliably airworthy by the FAA.”
The process involves 150 hours of test flights under all weather conditions in the U.S. and Israel. The recently announced ASTM compliant integral parachute enabled the regular testing time of 375 hours to be reduced significantly.
“Percepto is honored to be taking part in the highly esteemed TC ‘gold standard’ alongside companies such as Amazon Prime Air, and Zipline. Our Fortune 500 customers, including FPL, Delek-US and Verizon will be able to deploy our technology with minimal regulatory processes to benefit from the improved safety and efficiency the Percepto Sparrow provides,” Said Neta Gliksman, VP Policy and Government Affairs.
The EVLOS waiver in Australia, granted by CASA, allows Percepto’s Sparrow autonomous drone to fly at a total distance of almost one mile from an observer with multiple visual observers. Full BVLOS approvals in the country are expected early next year. The waiver is in line with some of Percepto’s largest customers in Australia, seeking to remotely manage inspection missions, without needing a pilot on site.
“Percepto is proud to be paving the way with regulators to approve remote operated drones and other robotics, realizing the value of automated inspection and monitoring for the future of the market. Our regulation and engineering teams are dedicated to advancing our global program and US & Australia hosts some of our most important clients,” said Dor Abuharisa, Percepto CEO and Co-Founder.
A drone-in-a-box solution, Percepto’s Autonomous Inspection & Monitoring (AIM) platform provides visual data management and analysis to report trends and anomalies and to alert operators of risks.
The platform includes the autonomous, weatherproof Sparrow drone equipped with UHD (4k) RGB and thermal cameras, as well as Percepto Base (a base station for recharging and sheltering the aircraft) and PerceptoCore, a suite of comprehensive data management and analytics software.
Autonomous Drone Percepto in the News
November: Percepto snags $45 million in Series B funding. Koch Disruptive Technologies led the round to launch “a transformative solution for remote, fully autonomous drone, asset monitoring, inspection and compliance of industrial sites.”
May: Market research firm Frost and Sullivan awards Percepto with the 2020 Global Enabling Technology Leadership Award for its “best-in-class, end-to-end autonomous drone-in-a-box solution.”
2019: Percepto trials autonomous drones over SK Telecom’s 5G trial network in South Korea.
2018: The company teams up with port-security firm CERTUS Port Automation to provide a fleet of autonomous drones to protect maritime ports and terminals.
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[…] Regulations regarding fully autonomous drone operations vary from country to country. In the U.S., “federal regulation is still a constraint for some of our customers,” Abuhasira said. This is especially true for customers interested in conducting inspections at remote locations, such as electric power substations, that typically don’t employ personnel on site. […]