Sponsored by The British Robotics Seed Fund
http: www.britbots.com/fund
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09 Sep 19. Paua to Help Deliver Ebola Vaccine. A drone delivery box manufactured from Paua’s materials technology (the “SkyPod”) has been successfully piloted in a first of its kind programme delivering Ebola vaccines and associated medications to remote areas. The SkyPod can travel distances over 40km whilst maintaining the required minus 70 Celsius temperatures.
Paua’s innovative, patent-pending materials technology produces the ultimate in impact and damage resistant, durable, fully recyclable and highly protective bags, boxes and cases for a range of applications.
For this project, a global pharmaceutical giant identified the need for a reusable parcel shipper in the wake of devastating damage and life loss from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
Using its cutting-edge materials technology, Paua worked with Softbox Systems, who in turn worked with Direct Relief, Merck, Volans-I and AT&T, to create the SkyPod, allowing pharma companies to deliver medicines safely, quickly and in optimum form to remote locations.
The SkyPod was successfully piloted in July 2019 in the Bahamas, representing a significant step forward both in biopharmaceutical supply chain innovation and in global humanitarian relief efforts.
Pete Symms, CEO of Paua said:
“We are immensely excited to see our technology being used to advance humanitarian relief efforts – it is great to be part of something which has such a positive impact.”
09 Sep 19. UK start-up launches autonomous drone ADDER. UK start-up, FlareBright Ltd, has today launched its latest autonomous drone product, ADDER (Autonomous Delivery Drone Emergency Resupply). ADDER permits accurate and autonomous last-mile resupply to a pinpoint location. It is delivered by air and glides in the last few hundred metres to its target location on the ground. This product uses Artificial Intelligence and complex software to create pinpoint delivery of small packages in all-weather and atmospheric conditions, even when Electro Magnetic Spectrum-denied. The initial prototypes will deliver up to 200g of equipment over a 200m distance and to less than 2m accuracy, with a larger aircraft and a larger payload to be developed in the future, with longer reach and better accuracy.
This builds on work for a confidential industrial project to deliver vital equipment to offshore locations whatever the conditions – where failure to deliver on any day can cost £100,000’s. The defence applications are in last mile resupply of small goods – delivered safely and autonomously; as well as the potential of weaponizing ADDER to deliver a specific effect accurately and to a pre-determined target.
ADDER builds on the expertise developed for FlareBright’s existing product, SnapShot, which recently achieved its 500th Test Flight. SnapShot can take high-quality aerial images in most weather and atmospheric conditions, with its hand-portable and extremely robust equipment. It has a unique method of launch and flight. It is ballistically launched to a height of 100 metres then uses sophisticated and patent pending software to control a glide path and home to the user. The advantages of this are that it can fly in almost any weather or atmospheric conditions, and it isn’t affected by other electromagnetic signals.
Customer interest has been shown from law enforcement, the emergency services, industrial inspection companies, urban mapping and the defence sector.
FlareBright’s CEO, Kelvin Hamilton said: “We have many years of software and AI development to reach the point of being confident to deliver vital supplies to any location in the world irrespective of weather or other challenges. We are expecting this to launch a new era of AI-enabled drone delivery.”
FlareBright will be exhibiting at DSEI in the UK Pavilion, stand S2-165.
About FlareBright
FlareBright is a UK OEM of micro-drones with specialist expertise in their software, control systems and electronics. It is a UK company founded by a team of successful entrepreneurs and engineers. Its key product, SnapShot, is an all-weather instant image capture drone used by defence, the emergency services and for industrial uses.
FlareBright’s mission is to become a leading supplier and innovator of autonomous flight systems. Using SnapShot as our proving technology, we will build robust tech, engineering and manufacturing know-how that creates products and services to supply the world’s growing aerospace autonomy sector.
FlareBright is actively looking for collaborators to develop their technology further and apply for joint grant funding proposals. See www.flarebright.com yes but i defer to Chris…On 20 May 2019 20:33, Kirsty Brown <> wrote:
04 Sep 19. SteelRock Technologies unveils NightFighter® C-UAV family. Tactical first response counter-drone effector system showcased in UK Capability Showcase at DSEI. At this year’s DSEI SteelRock Technologies (sruav.co.uk) will introduce the expanded NightFighter® family of Counter-UAV effector systems. Already deployed with Tier 1 security services in multiple jurisdictions, NightFighter mitigates all modes of intrusion by rotary and fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles. Extensively tested for safe deployment in complex radio frequency (RF) environments, the man-portable system combines highly directional RF communications inhibition technology with advanced proprietary software and hardware to bring drone threats to ground rapidly and safely.
Meeting the highest military EMC, environmental and safety standards and capable of deployment in seconds, the ruggedised system features a handheld effector and sighting device, linked to a light, compact backpack containing electronics controlled via a tablet and intuitive visual interface.
NightFighter is now offered in a choice of modular, readily customised configurations to suit a wide range of military, civilian and commercial security applications. NightFighter L (high antenna gain) and NightFighter S (low gain) variants have been demonstrated to be effective against UAVs at ranges in excess of 5km and 2.5km respectively.
Underlining the system’s highly modular architecture, NightFighter X is a highly portable all-in-one solution that can be body-worn for omni-directional personal protection against drone threats. It can also be attached to the NightFighter antenna array for directional deployment.
SteelRock offers the same field-proven RF technology packaged in an OEM module for third party integration in static land-based, hand-carried, vehicle mounted and maritime C-UAV systems.
At DSEI SteelRock is also showing a pre-production demonstrator of its own SR-1 Dronos UAV platform with NightFighter X technology integrated to create a ‘drone versus drone’ aerial solution.
“The threats posed by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to critical infrastructures, civilian assets and on the battlefield are well understood – and they’re growing rapidly” comments Rupert English, CEO and Founder of SteelRock Technologies. “NightFighter sets a new benchmark for performance, modularity and flexibility to meet the needs of operators who need a rapidly deployable, highly cost-effective anti-drone solution.”
Meet SteelRock Technologies at the UK Capability Showcase on Stand S10 445 at DSEI, ExCel London from 10-13 September.
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The British Robotics Seed Fund is the first SEIS-qualifying investment fund specialising in UK-based robotics businesses. The focus of the fund is to deliver superior returns to investors by making targeted investments in a mixed basket of the most innovative and disruptive businesses that are exploiting the new generation of robotics technologies in defence and other sector applications.
Automation and robotisation are beginning to drive significant productivity improvements in the global economy heralding a new industrial revolution. The fund allows investors to benefit from this exciting opportunity, whilst also delivering the extremely attractive tax reliefs offered by the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS). For many private investors, the amount of specialist knowledge required to assess investments in robotics is not practical and hence investing through a fund structure makes good sense.
The fund appoints expert mentors to work with each investee company to further maximise the chance of success for investors. Further details are available on request.
www.britbots.com/fund
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