The evolution of UAV technology is changing rapidly. What first started as flying circuit boards, are now mimicking real life nature.
The Clear flight solutions company has developed a life like bird of prey based upon the apex predator, the Peregrine Falcon, in order to try and solve everyday problems across a spectrum of industries At the moment the company provide services across a number of commercial sectors: Aviation, Agriculture, waste and harbor management.
Aviation – Due to a number of reasons, bird strikes to aircraft are increasing. The converging factors of more birds, airports, flights and aircraft along with the improvement in aircraft noise reduction, the rising number of collisions seems an obvious outcome.
Bird control in an ever increasing, populated airspace is a necessity rather than a luxury. At present falconer's use their trained birds to help alleviate the problem, but the Robird could be an extra weapon in an airport's arsenal to combat the problem.
Agriculture – Since we started cultivating land for crop production, there has been an ongoing battle to stop birds eating planted seeds and the fruits of that labor. From stuffed straw men to bird of prey kites, the 'scarecrow'has developed with the times and Robird is the next in line of that evolution.
As we know and have seen for ourselves, when passing a farmers field, the tradition methods have limiting and sometimes negative effects. Birds are smart and soon become accustom to scarecrow behavior and can associate the benign strawman with free food.
As we know and have seen for ourselves, when passing a farmers field, the tradition methods have limiting and sometimes negative effects. Birds are smart and soon become accustom to scarecrow behavior and can associate the benign strawman with free food.
Waste Management – The Clear Flight Solutions' website quotes 3 main reasons why bird prevention from landfills are essential.
Safety – Working at these sites alongside hungry, angry birds can be intimidating at the least.
Damage – Birds pick up and scatter waste away from the sites and often drop their pickings creating sometimes dangerous dropped objects to property and persons alike.
3 Bird Protection– Eating our waste products with chemical contaminants, plastics and all sorts of other rubbish is not the best dietary supplements for our flying friends.
The company says that using Robird, announced with the traditional farmer's gun loud bang can lead to the birds association to the arrival of a predator. In most cases, flocks vacate the area in anticipation of the flying intimidator.
Harbors – Harbors have always been a natural site, for birds who forage in and around the sea, to nest. The extra lure of open storage of goods adds more reason to settle there. Laws protecting wildlife do not allow shipments with nesting birds to be moved, meaning delayed departures, tied storage space, all leading to extra costs for companies.
Another reason is a mass of birds means a mass of corrosive bird droppings, which damage not only your beautiful car paintwork, but also more or less anything else that gets in their way.
All these industries could benefit from the more natural look and feel of the Robird. The company has been developing the natural flapping drone the past 15 years in the Netherlands and now want to launch it internationally. The drones are not for sale (shame), but only used to provide the services listed above. One day rental of the drone and operators will set you back $1000 - $1500, so they're only in the budget of large companies and governments.