Velodyne Lidar has entered into a multi-year agreement to provide its lidar sensors to TOPODRONE, a Swiss developer of affordable, high-precision solutions for aerial surveys. TOPODRONE already uses Velodyne sensors for high-precision mapping and 3D modelling but now commits its future to the provider.
TOPODRONE uses drones fixed with cameras such as Velodyne’s to map and 3D model environments that include farms, forests and infrastructure to support the development of projects. The company currently serves researchers and specialists at the Natural Resources Institute Finland working on sustainable development of the Finnish bioeconomy.
The researchers use a TOPODRONE laser scanner mounted on a drone, quadbike and person in winter conditions under -20° C and during the night, with the scanner delivering positional accuracy of collected point cloud data.
Other partnerships include Track Your Build, based in Sierra Leone, which offers remote sensing services for construction and infrastructure management. The company used a TOPODRONE scanner to conduct a topographical survey for a hydroelectric dam project and Velodyne state that Track Your Build has now brought lidar-based surveying into its workflow for urban and rural areas to “negate the need for spot elevations”.
“Velodyne’s lidar sensors enable our solutions to capture intricate, precise measurements that are essential in producing a high-quality survey”, said Maxim Baklykov, Founder and CEO, TOPODRONE. “The sensors’ lightweight and compact form factor provide great synergy with one of TOPODRONE’s major principles of building some of the lightest lidar-based survey solutions in the market.
“Velodyne’s sensors provide best in class power consumption which allows drones to fly longer. Working with Velodyne has helped us leverage their well-known brand and product quality, which adds great value and customer confidence in our solutions”.
TOPODRONE 100 LITE and TOPODRONE 200 ULTRA are lightweight and accurate solutions that can be installed on drones, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and backpack systems for mobile laser scanning. The systems use Velodyne’s Puck™, Puck Hi-Res™ and Ultra Puck™ as the 3D data perception and mapping sensors in its survey solutions.
TOPODRONE 200 ULTRA, together with a Supercam SX350 VTOL, allows surveyors to cover more than 10 square kilometres per flight with high density and accurate RGB LiDAR point cloud data generated from 150 meters altitude.
“TOPODRONE has built an impressive global customer base by helping companies address a range of challenging mapping conditions and delivering accurate survey data”, said Erich Smidt, Vice President of Europe, Velodyne Lidar. “Their solutions demonstrate the performance and flexibility of Velodyne’s sensors by having a product family with multiple deployment modes”.
Velodyne and TOPODRONE will showcase their lidar-based solutions for the geospatial community at INTERGEO 2021, an expo and conference platform for geomatics and future-oriented solutions. The event takes place in Hannover, Germany from September 21st to 23rd.
You can find more information about Velodyne Lidar, TOPODRONE and their agreement on the companies’ respective websites.
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