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96 Report | Intergeo Digital 2020 (including dual-antenna GNSS for heading information) and processors to accommodate end-users’ component preferences, which will vary depending on cost, sensor technology, supply chains and so on. Inertial Labs’ software and interfaces can also be customised, allowing its partners to have their branding on these components. Inertial Labs will perform the required calibration, bore-sighting and assembly of sensors (including all cables, mounting brackets and vibration isolators) to ensure seamless interfacing and comms between the different sensors. Key features common to every RESEPI include a 1 Tbyte USB memory drive, a 200 m effective range AGL, a total weight of 0.37 kg (without scanner), wi-fi and cellular data links, and a point cloud precision of 5-7 cm depending on the Lidar model. “From a cost-saving standpoint, the software and firmware development tends to be the biggest cost barrier for companies that want to make a multi- sensor payload for UAV-based mapping and inspection,” said Jamie Marraccini. “They need point cloud software, colourising software, data logging software, automation software and more. Even if they can buy products that do all of these, a lot of man-years of development are required to integrate them, even for a group of experienced geospatial engineers. “Our team’s in-house knowledge and software tools allow us to put together these entire RESEPIs smoothly and with high repeatability – from hardware to operating software modules, using NovAtel’s Inertial Explorer for post- processing – and still price them at around half that of the lowest-priced solutions on the market. That will naturally be far lower than the cost for experienced mapping companies and asset owners to develop the payloads themselves.” Current turnkey versions of the RESEPI come integrated with known Lidar models such as the Ouster OS1- 32 and OS2-32, Livox’s Mid-40 and Horizon systems (soon to be released for the Livox AVIA), Quanergy’s M8 scanner, and the Velodyne VLP-16 and VLP-32. Besides Lidar scanners, the RESEPI can be fitted with optical and thermal cameras for integrated Lidar and photogrammetry, and multi-beam echo sounders for integrated bathymetry, photogrammetry and topography. In addition, all these versions have an Inertial Labs GPS-aided INS with a NovAtel RTK/PPK single- or dual- antenna GNSS receiver integrated as standard, and an integrated data logger with a Linux-based processing platform. The navigation module outputs pitch and roll accurate to 0.01 º and heading to within 0.05 º . Inertial Labs bundles NovAtel Waypoint Inertial Explorer PPK software with its own point cloud software with colouriser. This enables post-processing of survey data to be automated without having to open the software interface, greatly simplifying the way remote sensing platforms gather and process data. “Given how customisable RESEPI is, in the near future we’d like to incorporate the latest Nvidia Jetson Xavier boards, so that end-users can not only log their data but perform edge-processing tasks such as onboard identification and classification of what’s in the scene,” Marracini added. “That will enable higher levels of autonomy for UAVs performing dynamic inspections, monitoring and SLAM operations.” AlphaLink Engineering spoke to us about its Virtual Flight Test Environment (VFTE), a service developed to enable 3D simulated flight testing in a web browser without the need for additional hardware or software. “The VFTE can be operated from a keyboard, joystick or gamepad, and controllers can be integrated and dynamically adjusted as needed,” explained Dr Daniel Cracau. “All flight test data can be saved afterwards as an Excel file, to be evaluated in MATLAB for example. Everything is based on a complete non-linear simulation, and it can also be used as an extension of existing hardware-in-the-loop [HiL] simulators to see the position of the aircraft in a 3D environment.” By providing a browser-based simulation environment, the company has responded to demands from researchers for a simple, low-cost modifiable tool to allow them to accrue and analyse flight test results, beyond the use of plots and graphs in MATLAB. “The interaction of the embedded coder in MATLAB/Simulink and the Emscripten tool from MIT has made it possible to translate almost any Simulink model into executable JavaScript code without much programming effort,” Dr Cracau added. “The code can then be integrated as a basis for simulation in html environments and executed in any web browser. “The flight dynamics used in VFTE can easily be replaced by other dynamics, enabling different UAV types to be simulated in the same environment. Together with Vector Informatik, we’ve created a full solution with a HiL simulator to cover the whole spectrum of testing and simulation of UASs.” Tallysman spoke with us about its newly available VeroStar full-band GNSS antenna, which has been developed for precision land survey rovers for manned or autonomous vehicle applications. “The VeroStar was inspired by the GNSS industry’s need for a wide- bandwidth antenna to cover all December/January 2021 | Unmanned Systems Technology The new Remote Sensing Payload Instrument from Inertial Labs