CHANNELS

Aerospace

Automotive

Automated & Autonomous Vehicles

Battery & Electrification Technology

Defense

Drone TV

Electronics

Manufacturing & Prototyping

Materials

Medical

Motion Control

RF & Microwave Technology

Robotics & Automation

Sensors & IoT

Test & Measurement

Aerospace
Automotive
Automated & Autonomous Vehicles
Battery & Electrification Technology
Defense
Drone TV
Electronics
Manufacturing & Prototyping
Materials
Medical
Motion Control
RF & Microwave Technology
Robotics & Automation
Sensors & IoT
Test & Measurement
Aerospace & Defense
Search Results

Swarm of 'eBee' Drones Generate 3D Model of Mountain in Swiss Alps

A spin-off company of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), called senseFly, develops and assembles autonomous mini-drones and related software solutions. The company's eBee drone has a flight time of up to 45 minutes, allowing it to cover areas of up to almost four square miles in a single flight. With its small 16-MP camera it can shoot high-resolution aerial imagery. CEO Jean-Christophe Zufferey describes how the company recently launched three lightweight eBee drones around the beautiful Matterhorn mountain, in the Swiss Alps. Over six hours and multiple flights, the mini-drones took almost 3,000 images. With Pix4D and Postflight Terra 3D-EB software, senseFly engineers were able to create a high-definition 3D point-cloud made up of 300 million points, with a resolution of 20 cm.

Topics:
Aerospace Automation Aviation Cameras Computer-Aided Design (CAD) Imaging Motion Control Robotics Software

More From SAE Media Group

    Transcript

    00:00:05 since flag is an FFL spin-off that develops and markets small drones like this one that way typically less than one kilogram so these are inherently safe and basically they can fly completely autonomously they have a lot of pilot and I equipped with a small camera that can take pictures such that after the flight we can reconstruct maps using a software that is developed by

    00:00:27 pix 40 another EPFL spin-off you're speaking about an accuracy of 10 centimeters so you can really do many things like measuring volumes in mining for example or in quarries and stuff like that so very recently 8 cents fly we went and mapped the Matterhorn for this mission we went to Zermatt with three drones that flew in total for 6

    00:00:48 hours and they took almost 3,000 images we wanted to demonstrate that our product are capable of first of all coping with the challenge of mapping a 3d object be able to fly it very high altitude we are talking here about 5000 meters and finally also cope with the turbulences that are typically found around mountainous environments and now we are really brushed away by

    00:01:12 this awesome 3d model that we generated from this pictures