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95 less than those for inductive charging. The square base plate allows its system to be used by a wide range of UAVs, as many have square-oriented landing struts that will fit into the system, without needing to invest in a bespoke automated charging solution. RIEGL unveiled two new UAV Lidar sensors, the VUX-120 and the miniVUX-3UAV. “The VUX-120 weighs 2 kg and features a pulse repetition rate of up to 1.8 MHz, delivering up to 400 scan lines,” said Philipp Amon. “It uses a scanning pattern developed to enable optimal inspection of vertical targets, such as high-voltage pylons, house facades or steep mountain slopes. In this so-called NFB [nadir/forward/ backward] scanning, the 100 º FoV is scanned in alternating planes: first, strictly vertical down, then +10 º forward oblique, then -10 º backward oblique. “Also, the wide FoV enables users to fly parallel to the asset, performing side- looking scanning, as opposed to flying directly over it. That can significantly increase safety for applications such as mapping power line networks.” The miniVUX-3UAV weighs 1.55 kg and can scan with a 300 kHz pulse repetition rate, tripling the laser’s frequency compared with the original miniVUX- 1UAV. It follows that end-users can fly three times faster with the miniVUX- 3UAV than with the miniVUX-1UAV while capturing the same point density on the ground. Alternatively, they can fly at the same flight speed while tripling the point density, producing a more accurate and feature-rich point cloud. SBG Systems has added a new ‘virtual base station’ (VBS) feature in its Qinertia post-processing software. VBS can establish a virtual network around an end-user’s project using the most relevant nearby GNSS base stations; within this network area, the end-user’s positional accuracy is maximised and homogeneous, similarly to a PPK short baseline. This enables surveyors to collect consistent and centimetre-accurate position data when far from base stations or over large areas, making it ideal for corridor mapping. “Traditional RTK performance decreases when distances to base stations increase, owing to ionospheric and tropospheric disturbances,” explained Alexis Guinamard. “So the first step of our VBS is running a specific algorithm on each base station in the network, estimating its local atmospheric errors. Then, on the vehicle side, we compute a more classical RTK algorithm that accounts for all these local atmospheric errors, interpolated at the vehicle’s location.” Qinertia also adjusts the VBS network to compensate for any base station’s position inaccuracy, and can mix users’ base stations with permanent network base stations to improve accuracy in remote locations. In addition to unveiling new MEMS and INS systems (see AUVSI Xponential report, page 50), Inertial Labs has also launched its new Remote Sensing Payload Instrument (RESEPI), which integrates multiple sensors to enable highly accurate geo-referenced point clouds to be created at low cost. RESEPI can incorporate a range of Lidars, cameras, GNSS receivers Intergeo Digital 2020 | Report Unmanned Systems Technology | December/January 2021 RIEGL’s miniVUX-3UAV Lidar is optimised for inspecting houses and other vertical targets The Qinertia post-processing software from SBG Systems now comes with a virtual base station feature