USE Network launch I UAV Works VALAQ l Cable harnesses l USVs insight l Xponential 2020 update l MARIN AUV l Suter Industries TOA 288 l Vitirover l AI systems l Vtrus ABI

80 They can later reactivate their high- precision requirement at the extremities of a plot, or when nearing a potentially sensitive point such as on-site equipment or valuable crops. “Only on the railways is centimetre- accurate GNSS needed 100% of the time, for safety’s sake,” de la Fouchardiere says. “Power management isn’t so much of an issue here, since SNCF’s rail lines tend to be so clear of obstacles, trees and overhead cover that our UGVs will often finish the job with little to no loss of battery charge, such is the quantity of solar energy available to them.” Although the herd operates autonomously, each vehicle maintains a data link to the Vitirover shepherd, who oversees key data from their phone or computer. “The fleet manager’s software can be installed on a computer, tablet or phone, so that the shepherd can monitor everything remotely, usually from an office or a van with wi-fi, potentially many miles away,” de la Fouchardiere explains. “The shepherd will be able to carry out about 85-90% of the maintenance of the herds remotely. “If any of the vehicles experiences a disruption in their duties, such as a systems failure, it sends a notification to the shepherd, who can then select that vehicle from a ‘herd dashboard’ in his fleet management software. This opens an information panel covering all of that vehicle’s performance data, such as the power consumption of each electric motor, the energy being generated by the solar panel, the navigation accuracy and so on, to help determine the nature of the problem.” The shepherd can therefore judge what (if any) maintenance can be performed remotely. This may also eventually involve an on-site visit to swap out a specific UGV’s grinder blade or to clean the solar panel, for instance. Depending on the use-case, the shepherd overseeing each herd may be one of Vitirover’s staff or a member of the client company whom Vitirover has taught to understand and use the control and monitoring software. “For example, agricultural company RWA, in Austria, sent us some of their people for a week, and in that time we instructed them on the maintenance, repairs and operation of the robot. They’ve successfully managed the robots since then,” de la Fouchardiere says. June/July 2020 | Unmanned Systems Technology Assets such as farms and solar plants need to be guarded against overgrowth in vegetation so that food and energy supplies will not suffer In the future, cameras and other sensors installed on the Vitirovers could be used to track and record data about health indicators for plants and soil Solar cells from BASE enable the UGV to charge its batteries during operations and while at rest