We operate a fleet of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) of various types in support of internally-held research projects and teaching programmes, with some platform development ongoing.
The DJI M300 RTK is the flagship of our UAS fleet, providing a state of the art platform for the latest commercially available sensors for drone survey.
The DJI Mavic 3 Multispectral (Mavic 3M) is an extremely portable, highly sophisticated platform with built-in high quality 20Mp photogrammetry and 4-band multispectral sensors, supported by cm-level RTK positioning.
The Mini SE is a sub-250g drone and as such is exempt from the majority of the separation requirements within the UK regulations. It is equipped with a 12Mp stills / 2,7K video camera system.
The Zeta Science FX-61 is a lightweight fixed wing platform with a payload of a few hundred grams. In development.
Training Systems
In addition to the above we operate a number of systems dedicated to training. These include very small multi-rotors for indoor use, and an e-Flite Apprentice S15e fixed wing trainer – a relatively low cost platform, available ready-to-fly (and with spare parts easily available), and featuring a very useful system known as ‘Sensor Assisted Flight Envelope’, or SAFE, technology. The SAFE system is able to provide auto-stabilisation or attitude limitation (i.e. preventing the aircraft from entering extreme attitudes), and can be switched between modes mid-flight.