Work for businesses on the move in their UAV inspection, surveying, or mapping activities may get a little bit easier with the unveiling of HexTruck – a pickup-mounted automated drone hangar platform compatible with any off-the-shelf craft.
HexTruck is the result of a collaboration between autonomous UAV dock manufacturer Hextronics and FlytBase, which provides drone-agnostic software solutions to automate and scale aerial operations. The HexTruck unit takes the earlier Hextronics Global rapid-refueling battery-swapping station for a variety of low-cost commercial drones and goes farther, making that portable system truly mobile with a new core component called Global Advanced.
HexTruck is designed to be fitted into the bed of a pickup truck and used for launch, landing, and automated drone maintenance within the hangar from that position. As such, companies using UAV for business can use equipped road vehicles as all-in-one solutions for getting their inspection or surveying drones out to worksites, and operating them autonomously from the installed HexTruck hangar.
Continual development of Hextronics Global, and creation of the new HexTruck, arose from Hextronics’ consultation with responders, public safety officials, and drone service clients. What the company heard was that shorter response times and easy handling of drone fleets was central to the effectiveness of drone deployments – particularly during emergencies. That led it to design and create the new Global Advanced unit at the heart of the mounted HexTruck concept.
Once in place, those assets permit completely automated operation and maintenance of drones for the entire span of their missions, which can also be managed remotely. Take-off, landing, battery swapping and charging are all carried out automatically, cutting both time and cost of inspection, mapping, or surveying of sites – particularly those requiring longer travel to access.
The main components of the mountable HexTruck offer include the Hextronics Global Advanced unit; customizable truck-bed mount and retractable cover (which secures the dock firmly to the truck, and shields it from dust, rain, and tampering); DC/AC inverter and isolated battery pack, enabling efficient mobile operations while preventing drain to the truck’s main battery; and extended antennas for reliable WiFi and GPS connections.
The companies plan to introduce HexTruck during an online event Thursday, October 28, at 11 a.m. CST. Registration to participate can be completed here.
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