During an aerial survey flight, the UAS detected a rapid loss of battery power and initiated an immediate automatic landing. Whilst descending, its flight behaviour became erratic, control was lost to the remote pilot, and the UA struck an uninvolved person before hitting the ground.
The UAS was planned to fly as part of a survey to monitor progress on a construction site, to take images along the front and across the site within the property boundaries agreed with the client. Weather conditions on the day were good visibility, low winds and moderate temperature. The flight started from a location towards the rear of the construction site, approximately 300 m from the site frontage. The remote pilot then flew the UA to approximately head‑height and completed flight control checks, where the battery indicator showed 95% but rapidly dropped to 88%. The pilot continued, manually flying the aircraft at a height of 50 – 60 m over the construction site towards a point approximately 50 m from the site frontage to record the image
The pilot received a critically low – landing battery notification and the UA initiated automatic landing1. The UA was observed to fly in an erratic manner, and the pilot stated he had limited lateral control available to enable him to fly it into a clear area. It came close to houses under construction and stopped responding to control inputs. The pilot described it as then “appearing to descend too fast, despite the propellers spinning”, before going out of sight behind some construction materials. The UA struck a site worker on their arm, dropped into some cement, and fell to the ground. The site worker was not injured.
It was not possible to determine a cause for the loss of battery power or the flight behaviour. There may have been an opportunity during flight control checks to consider unexpected battery discharge rate as a reason to abort the flight.
During an aerial survey flight, the UAS detected a rapid loss of battery power and initiated an immediate automatic landing. Whilst descending, its flight behaviour became erratic, control was lost to the remote pilot, and the UA struck an uninvolved person before hitting the ground. It was not possible to determine a cause for the loss of battery power or the flight behaviour. There may have been an opportunity during flight control checks to consider the unexpected battery discharge rate as a reason to abort the flight.
History of the flight
The UAS was planned to fly as part of a survey to monitor progress on a construction site, to take images along the front and across the site within the property boundaries agreed with the client. Weather conditions on the day were good visibility, low winds and moderate temperature.
The flight started from a location towards the rear of the construction site, approximately 300 m from the site frontage. The remote pilot then flew the UA to approximately head‑height and completed flight control checks, where the battery indicator showed 95% but rapidly dropped to 88%. The pilot continued, manually flying the aircraft at a height of 50 – 60 m over the construction site towards a point approximately 50 m from the site frontage to record the imagery.
The pilot received a critically low–landing battery notification and the UA initiated automatic landing
The UA was observed to fly in an erratic manner, and the pilot stated he had limited lateral control available to enable him to fly it into a clear area. It came close to houses under construction and stopped responding to control inputs. The pilot described it as then “appearing to descend too fast, despite the propellers spinning”, before going out of sight behind some construction materials. The UA struck a site worker on the arm, dropped into some cement, and fell to the ground. The site worker was not injured.
Riga, Latvia – The 3rd International Drone Show Competition, initiated by SPH Engineering’s Drone Show Software (DSS) team, announces its results.
Participants from 31 countries competed for the right to get to the final and become the winner in one of 5 categories. Applications from drone show operators, event companies, firework enthusiasts, 3D animators, and other professionals involved in the drone show industry were evaluated by an international jury, composed of representatives of the media industry, drone enterprises, creative and design agencies, experienced high-tech entrepreneurs, etc.
In the third, already traditional and long-awaited, Drone Show Competition, the concept was expanded, and such unique nominations as “Best Drone Show Storytelling” and “Best Simulation with the Integration of Drones and Fireworks” appeared. This expanded the range of participants and gave them an opportunity to talk in detail about the unique concepts of their work, their history of creation, and the incredible ideas behind the movement of each drone figure soaring in the sky.
Among the 51 finalists, you can find a Guinness record, synchronization of ground and aerial shows, shows that have been flying in a series for several months, as well as shows dedicated to protecting the environment or the history of entire countries.
Every year the level of drone show operators and choreographers is growing at an incredible speed, so the task of the jury was not an easy one, and the organizers of the Competition decided to establish a number of special prizes and increase the number of initially planned winners.
Please love and favour – winners of the 3rd International Drone Show Competition:
2 winners in the “Best drone show animation” nomination: Drone Show Animations team from Portugal & Diffuse x Titouan Malivoir from France,
“Best drone show storytelling“ nomination winner: Celestial from the United Kingdom,
2 winners in the “Best drone show at the event” nomination: Kaohsiung City Government Bureau of Cultural Affairs from Taiwan & Andrei Golenev from the United Arab Emirates,
“Best promotional drone show” nomination winner: Lumasky from the United Arab Emirates,
“Best integrated show: Fireworks and Drones” nomination winner: Sky Elements from the United States of America.
Special prizes are awarded:
Pixis drones from the United States of America for the “Best drone show for the celebrity”,
Dutch Drone Shows from the Netherlands for the “Best show demonstrating the capabilities of small drone show fleets (50 drones)”,
Tom BetGeorge from the United States of America for the “Best combination of music, lighting design & drone show”,
Cyberdrone team from the United Arab Emirates for the “Best drone show for the anniversary”,
Teemu Eskola from Finland for the “Best drone show animation with eco concept”,
Andrei Golenev from the United Arab Emirates for the “Best drone show combined with performing arts and historical memory”,
Sky Elements from the United States of America for the “Best project promoting drone show service”.
Winners will enjoy specially developed drone show operator kits (a set of items that an operator always needs for a comfortable process of organizing a drone show), will receive many valuable prizes, such as Flyfire Kaiken 5-Drone Kit complete with all required accessories to fly, DJI Avata Fly Smart Combo, iPhone 14 Pro, GoPros HERO11 Black, will be granted diplomas.
And the winners in the nomination “Best drone show animation” get the opportunity to present their choreography at the International Drone Show Festival in 2023 in Spain.
According to Alex Levandovskiy, head of the Drone Show Software division at SPH Engineering, participants presented an incredible growth of the industry; “This Competition showed that the drone show industry is indeed one of the fastest growing areas today. I am delighted with the level that some of the contestants have reached in just a few months. A number of companies offer the market such ideas that it seems as if better and more interesting is no longer possible. But drone show choreographers, show producers, and leaders of drone show teams push the boundaries of the possible every time! Every finalist is strong! We would love to reward everyone, but rules are rules! Next year we will further expand the concept in accordance with the wishes and requests of the community.”
The 3rd International Drone Show Competition was established to bring together the best representatives of the drone show industry and present their wonderful drone light shows and projects to the whole world. The organizers of the Competition are not going to stop supporting the drone show community and creating new opportunities for it!
Flyfirecombines the best of design and engineering into the next generation of autonomous flying drones & will present the winners in one of the nominations Flyfire Kaiken 5-Drone Kit complete with all required accessories to fly. Kaiken – light show drones, compact, robust, and extra-bright,
Flock Drone Art, who will work with the winners in the “Best drone show animation” nomination to prepare the final choreography and who will take this choreography to the sky at the Festival with their fleet,
Finale Fireworks team provided access to the Finale 3D Pro license to everyone who wanted to take part in the nomination “Best integrated show simulation: Fireworks and Drones”. Finale Fireworks dedication is to provide software for professionals and enthusiasts ensuring to enjoy every aspect of creating a firework show,
And others.
About SPH Engineering
SPH Engineering is a global provider of UAV software solutions, integration services, consulting and custom development to expand drone applications. Its innovations support UAVs of different manufacturers and advanced drone technologies for surveying, data collection, and entertainment. Founded in 2013 in Latvia (EU), the company has a global customer and partner network in 150+ countries.
A forest restoration project using XAG Agricultural Drones has been initiated in Brazil, which is a pioneer in experimenting the scope of planting seeds of native tree species by drone. The trial will help demonstrate the effectiveness of drone to boost forest growth, paving the way for the autonomous technology to be used in large-scale planting of Brazilian forests.
This drone seeding application is part of the Arboreto Project, carried out by the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Brazil’s oldest university, in collaboration with Timber, XAG’s local partner and a supplier of autonomous agricultural machinery. It aims to help speed up the process of forest restoration through planting tree species with commercial interest and environmental adaptation.
During the field experiment, different amounts of seeds were weighed and sorted into the smart container onboard the drone. After the pilot entered all the operation parameters into the mobile APP, such as waypoints, flight speed, and spray volume, the XAG Agricultural Drone with a spreading attachment was planned to run along target lines, evenly distributing seeds from different forest species native to the region.
Compared to planting trees by manual labor, drone with full automation can improve the productivity of the restoration work, especially in terrains that is difficult to access. It is expected that agricultural drone can serve as a cost-effective tool to facilitate the replanting of native trees by governments and companies.
As a leading agri-tech company, XAG develops drones for various agricultural uses that have been introduced to 42 countries and regions. Its agricultural drones are widely used for sowing seeds, spreading fertilizers, spraying pesticides, and digital field mapping.
As deforestation has become a global crisis that can undermine the climate target and threaten food security, the autonomous farming drone could be explored for a new territory to make forest replanting easier and faster. Brazil, with the world’s second largest forest area, is among one of the countries which pledged to end and reverse deforestation by 2030 at the COP26 climate summit.
Now with the seeds of hope planted, germination rate and tree growth per row will be carefully evaluated for this innovative project, in addition to understanding the most suitable seed mixture for drone application.
Taking advantage of the versatility of XAG‘s agricultural drone, UFPR also conducted another experiment with an eye on fertilization and pest control for plantations of commercial tree species. At UFPR’s Experimental Farm near Rio Negro, the XAG drone automatically dispersed solid fertilizer and liquid pesticide into an area with 1.5-year-old slash pine planting.
“We know how difficult it is to carry out work like this one to plant native trees. So, when we can count on a technology that has control and that we can manage to define rigor, this is welcomed”, concluded by Professor Alessandro Camargo Angelo.
