Micro Aerial Projects L.L.C.

This beautiful bird has now been released to soar the West African skies, now happily hunting for gazillions of pixels over cities and fields for a better understanding of the places we work and live in. Oliver Volkmann Alexander Ayettey

When I grew up, everybody still worked on Saturdays - at least up to lunch. The weekend was a matter of one and a half days. Funny thing is I can't recall when that 40 hour, 5 day work week live style became the modus operandi. And somehow, I have never managed to conform to that, and, I must confess, many other work habits. I think there are two reasons. One is the inertia of habit, the other is that I am just so damn lucky that I can't distinguish between work and play. So on Saturday, in true V-Map family tradition, Oliver Volkmann and I found ourselves out in the field doing our latest drone thing - figuring out how to get a fast fixed wing mapping platform to reliably perform steep approach precision landings in automatic mode. The context is that we want to be able to acquire aerial images without having to be pro-pilots and without having to bulldoze long runways for our missions either. So why not hand over to good old automation to land accurately and on short runways (i.e. soccer fields)? Well, that's what we have been at for the last few weeks. Equipping our Elanus Duo (from Dual RC) Believer drones with dual frequency phase differential real time kinematic (RTK) GNSS and accurate lidar range finder for super precise navigation inputs, we expect the platform to return the favor by landing precisely where our flight plans tell it to land. We see safety and efficiency in precision. The challenge is to communicate that intention unambiguously to the electronic flight controller by means of appropriate settings and flight parameters. We are well on our way to getting that right. Once we are confident that despite limited piloting skills, one can successfully execute fully automated flight procedures, including the critical aspect of landing precisely in pre-planned positions, we can share those parameters and our excitement with so many other geo-spatial colleagues all over the world. While the hardware still needs to be shipped, an operators’ manual and proven, well documented procedures can be shipped digitally anywhere without hindrance. So we are looking forward to getting fixed wing piloting for mapping and survey tasks established as a matter-of-fact daily routine in all corners of the world without having to travel there for training. Now take that Covid19! Thanks to placefund (formerly Omidyar Network) for supporting us in these endeavors.