Issue 40 Unmanned Systems Technology October/November 2021 ANYbotics ANYmal D l AI systems focus l Aquatic Drones Phoenix 5 l Space vehicles insight l Sky Eye Rapier X-25 l FlyingBasket FB3 l GCS focus l AUVSI Xponential 2021

71 adjacent areas otherwise accessible only by helicopter or on foot. It soon became clear to the Moroders that other sectors would benefit from the FB3’s payload capacity and high- altitude capabilities, including farmers and forestry workers. Early cargo for customers in these industries included a power saw and a wire winch delivered to a point in the forest 400 m up a mountain from a farm in the Wipptal Valley in South Tyrol. FlyingBasket has since completed missions for customers in the energy and telecoms sectors. In April this year, for example, the company worked with Bavarian state forestry company Bayerische Staatsforsten to prove the FB3’s ability to support tree-planting operations in the Bavarian Alps. In total, the FB3 transported 2000 tree seedlings from a location in the valley of Aschau to planting locations up in the mountains near the Kampenwand, the highest mountain in the Bavarian Alps, working together with a helicopter. Business developer Simran Rohra explains, “Normally, the helicopter brings the seedlings to a central location and the forestry workers then have to carry them on foot to where they are to be planted. We carried the tree seedlings in batches of 25-70 kg at a time to 18 locations on the mountain, reducing the loads they had to carry and the distances they had to walk.” Loads were prepared in bags containing pots of seedlings and tools required for planting, attached one at a time to a sling that was long enough to allow the pilot to lower the load into small clearings between trees up to 35 m tall, opening the cargo hook and releasing the sling when the load had touched down. The touchdown points were up to 600 m from the take-off point. Last-mile delivery “The idea is not to replace the helicopter but to fill a gap,” Rohra says. “There are lots of places and scenarios in which the drone is a much better solution to that ‘last-mile’ delivery problem.” The company emphasises that for heavy loads a helicopter is usually the best or only solution, but for loads of 30-400 kg a cargo UAV has many advantages and offers a good alternative. As the FB3’s current maximum payload is 100 kg, there is clearly room for larger, more capable developments in this kind of application. A more ambitious mission for Swiss telecoms provider cablex followed in June, when the FlyingBasket team used the FB3 to carry a payload of radio equipment and tools weighing up to 80 kg across a valley in Davos Wiesen, Jenisberg, to a point near the base of a mast on which cablex technicians were to install an antenna. “There are different ways of addressing this,” Rohra explains. “There are several types of tower on which the technician would be very exposed to the drone, FlyingBasket FB3 | In operation Unmanned Systems Technology | October/November 2021 We carried tree seedlings in 25- 70 kg batches at a time to 18 locations, reducing the loads workers had to carry and the distances they had to walk The FlyingBasket FB3 electric octocopter lifts payloads of up to 100 kg for delivery to challenging locations in VLOS, extended VLOS and BVLOS operations (Images courtesy of FlyingBasket) The FB3 and provisions prepared for a lift up to a remote alpine mountain shelter in an initial proof-of-concept mission. Payloads are underslung on a long line