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77 unique legislation designed to foster and develop unmanned aircraft – I really couldn’t have been in a better place and time to implement the UAV-driven commercial services I envisioned. I felt there was a void in terms of real business impetus to offer the benefits of UAS surveys nationwide, which is why I founded SkySkopes in October 2014.” The ‘value statement’ that SkySkopes offered was that of providing aerial video- recording services for special occasions and buildings. “One of our first clients was the Grand Forks County Historical Society, to take scenic videos and photographs of their museum grounds,” Dunlevy says. “That was back in the days of the FAA’s Section 3.33 exemption, long before Part 107. “In a lot of ways, that was what got me hooked on doing this for a living. I was witnessing so many unique and beautiful spaces from the ground and the sky, and seeing how UAVs could have a positive impact on society solidified my determination to find long-term, large- scale users for commercial UAVs and the data they could capture.” The company was too far from Hollywood to realistically engage with UAS cinematography projects on a large scale, but didn’t want to move, given its proximity to the wealth of expertise and networking opportunities at UND, Grand Forks Air Base and the Northern Plains UAS Test Site. After conversations over a couple of years with his engineering and aviation colleagues, Dunlevy and his team started investigating how energy industries could make use of UAV survey data. “To do justice to our engineers and pilots, we had to get into the right industry, in terms of scalability and repeatability of operations,” he explains. “One of our first missions in the energy sector was an electrical substation survey for one of the largest electric utility companies in the US, not far from where we were located. “Back then, a lot of energy companies still had reservations about working with small start-ups, or even regarding working with UAVs at all. But we soon started getting regular work from a utility company called Minnkota Power, and more partnerships stemmed from that.” Demand for Lidar SkySkopes now offers a variety of aerial survey solutions. The greatest demand is for its Lidar mapping services, in applications such as generating terrain models for vegetation encroaching on power lines and other infrastructure, or producing 3D models of buildings and utility assets to inspect their condition and look for possible points of wear or damage. “It’s absolutely critical to use the best UAV and sensors possible. A huge amount of effort therefore went into picking a heavy-lift platform that would carry the Lidar payloads our business offerings were to be based on, while still being under 55 lb [24.9 kg] to comply with Part 107,” Dunlevy notes. At the time of writing, the workhorse for SkySkopes’ Lidar mapping flights – and indeed, for all SkySkopes’ missions – is the MFD 5000 from Watts Innovations. Although it can be customised, Matt Dunlevy | In conversation Unmanned Systems Technology | October/November 2019 The MFD 5000 from Watts Innovations has long been the workhorse of SkySkopes’ energy infrastructure operations (Images courtesy of SkySkopes) Dunlevy’s team has developed its own optical gas imaging sensor by combining detectors, spectrometers and other parts from different companies