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CATUAV

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CATUAV
Company typePrivate
IndustryUnmanned aerial vehiclesservices
Founded2007
FounderJordi Santacana[1]
HeadquartersMoià,Spain
Key people
Jordi Salvador, Marc Beltran
ProductsAtmos, Argos, Furos, Stratos
Websitecatuav

CATUAV S.L.is a technology-based private company that offers aerial services usingunmanned aerial vehicles(UAV). Its headquarters are located in theMoiàairfield in theBCN Drone Center,40 km north ofBarcelona,Spain.[2]

History

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CATUAV is a company involved in developing UAV technologies for aerial image acquisition purposes in Europe.[3]The first UAV prototype was built in 2003, as a new business line within Aeroplans Blaus S.L., a company dedicated to experimental and sport aviation equipment.[4]During this period some surveillance UAV systems were developed as part of a strategic agreement withProytecsaandIndra.[5]

In 2007 the UAV business line had grown enough to create a new company, CATUAV, founded to provide all the services offered with these systems. In 2008 the company signed a strategic agreement with AURENSIS, aTelespazio/Finmeccanicacompany.[6][7][8]Since then, CATUAV has performed more than 100 commercial missions in the civil market.

Technologies

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The Atmos6 unmanned aerial vehicle, for civil applications

Since 2003 CATUAV has developed different technologies in order to perform its services:[9]

  • Atmos series:Mini-UAV that weighs less than 2 kg and can carry apayloadof up to 500g. Powered with anelectric motorthis is a platform that is used primarily for mapping projects. The current version is Atmos-6, which is an evolution of the five previous models (from Atmos-1 to Atmos-5)
  • Furos:A medium-range UAV that thanks to its gasoline engine can fly for six hours and cover distances of over 400 km guided byautopilot.The cargo bay has ample space for payload in the central area of the fuselage and the nose has a modular system designed to accommodate thermal cameras. The high power of its engine and its special streamlined design allows to take off and land in very little space from unprepared terrain. It can reach a top speed of 145 km / h and climb to 3,000 m in less than ten minutes. Equipped with a new video link and long-range data link, can be manually controlled to 20 km or undertake missions on their pre-programmed autopilot. It weighs less than 11 kg and can carry a payload of up to 5 kg (including fuel).
  • Argos:Evolution of the Furos, this UAV weighs less than 12 kg and can carry a payload up to 6.25 kg (including fuel). Powered with a fuel engine, it can fly for up to 14 hours, making it CATUAV's longest enduring platform. It has a big cargo bay that is easy to adapt to different payloads and a long endurance to get the maximum of each flight. ARGOS is an easy to deploy, easy to fly mid-range platform that has a conventional landing gear for taking off from very short runways or a special hook for catapult launching when there is no runway available. Wings are foldable in less than five minutes for easy transportation even in small vehicles.
  • Mineos:a versatile mini-UAV with a silent electrical propulsion system. Its small size allows performing a great variety of missions, it is ideal for video surveillance, photogrammetry, filming and as a platform for scientific andremote sensingapplications. It hasGPS navigation system,automatic stabilizer system and emergency locator transmitter. The new MINEOS is foldable and easy to carry in any vehicle.
  • Telemetrydata link:CATUAV has its own telemetry protocol that ensures the security and safety of all the communications. The UAVs can be controlled in a 15 km radius with aradio frequencylink. This range can be extended using asatellite link.
  • Ground control station:In order to operate the UAV, CATUAV has developed a towable ground station with all the equipment required to deploy and operate the UAVs and read all the telemetry data. It also has a portable ground station for missions that do not have path access.
  • Mission software: CATUAV is operating its own planning and control mission software, specially adapted to its UAV platforms and application requirements.

CATUAV also operates third-party products that play a role in its activity, such as:

Services

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Some services the company offers include:[10][11]

Orthophotos

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Orthophotosareaerial photographiesthat have been geometrically corrected such that the scale is uniform, having each pixel an associated geographic coordinate. Orthophotos have the same lack of distortion as maps, so they are an accurate representation of the Earth's surface that can be used to measure distances.

Using photogrammetric software, the aerial images acquired with UAV systems can be rectified and merged in order to create orthorectified image mosaics of the desired extension. The orthophotos have a resolution between 5 cm to 2 m/píxel. In one flight, areas up to 1000 hectares can be detected.

The generation of the orthophotos is made using software that automatically applies photogrammetric principles to rectify the images. As input, it needsgeoreferencedaerial images and the usage of a calibrated camera. This process leads to submeter precisions in the full orthophoto extension, which can still be increased adding manual control points.

The UAV systems can be equipped with multiple cameras, allowing us the acquisition of images in multiple spectral bands:visible,near infrared,thermal,hyperspectral.Those images can be postprocessed (for example to computevegetation index) and orthophotos can be generated for each spectral band, resulting in a huge range of applications:

Digital elevation models for GIS applications

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ADigital Elevation Model(DEM) is a continuous 3D representation of a terrain surface area that has been geometrically corrected, so it can be used to measure distances and heights. Two main kinds of DEM can be generated:

  • Digital Terrain Model (DTM): 3D representation of the terrain base surface without vegetation and artificial objects.
  • Digital Surface Model(DSM): 3D representation of all elements in the area.

CATUAV systems generate a DTM in every flight as a product of the rectification process. From this previous DTM, with more intensive software procedures, a densePoint Cloud3D model can be generated, from which a high-resolution DSM can be derived.

Obtaining in the same flight an orthophoto plus a DEM, provides a high quality and low-cost product that can be used to support any topography and cartography work. With further processing, dense Point Cloud and DSM can also be obtained, which leads to applications in multiple fields:

Non-metric, oblique aerial images

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If the onboard camera pose has a certain angle from the vertical direction, oblique images are obtained, which allows the obtaining of an aerial perspective of the scene. Thanks to the use of an onboard GPS and inertial system, each image acquired can be automatically georeferenced. The aerial perspective obtained with this kind of images makes it possible to see the scene from a bird's point of view and leads to numerous applications where they are useful:

  • Civil works management
  • Power lines maintenance
  • Energy efficiency in buildings
  • 360º panorama creation

Atmospheric data

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The systems can be equipped with any desired sensors in order to obtain atmospheric data such as temperature, pressure,CO
2concentration, etc. This data can be used to perform atmospheric prospection and environmental studies.

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  • Lorca earthquake:In May 2011 CATUAV performed a series of flights over Lorca (Spanish town inMurcia) 38 hours after it was struck by a strong earthquake. The high resolution orthophoto created from the town allowed the emergency services to evaluate and quantify the damages in buildings. This is the first known application of a mini-UAV in a civil emergency in Europe.[13]
  • SAFEDEM project: CATUAV is participating in the SAFEDEM project of theESAto develop a system capable of helping in the demining works in Bosnia.[14]

Awards

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CATUAV has been awarded theGalileo MastersEuropean GNSS Agency(GSA) special topic prize and regional prize in 2011 for itsTCASfor mini UAV project.[15][16]

Other awards:

  • ESNC Regional Prize[17]
  • Innovacat (2012)[18][19]
  • Premi Medi Ambient (2012)[20]
  • Drone social innovation award[21]
  • Nit de la robotica (2015)[22]

References

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  1. ^"Come fly with me: Why Catalonia is really seeing drones take off".ZDNET.
  2. ^"Servicios UAV".CATUAV.Retrieved2012-04-12.
  3. ^CATUAV, vehículos aereos no tripulados(PDF)(in Spanish), Aviación Deportiva, 2009,retrieved2012-04-02[permanent dead link]
  4. ^"Aeroplans Blaus".Aeroplans Blaus.Retrieved2012-04-12.
  5. ^"Indra Desarrolla Un Nuevo Sistema De Detección De Intrusión En Espacios Abiertos - Seguritecnia [Editorial Borrmart]".Borrmart.es.Retrieved2012-04-12.
  6. ^"ThermoUAV".ThermoUAV.Retrieved2012-04-12.
  7. ^Aurensis firma un acuerdo estratégico con CatUAV(in Spanish), Aurensis, 2008, archived fromthe originalon 2016-03-03,retrieved2012-04-02
  8. ^Trabajos aéreos con mini-UAV en España(PDF)(in Spanish), Avion Revue 334, 2009,retrieved2012-04-02[permanent dead link]
  9. ^"Servicios UAV".CATUAV. Archived fromthe originalon 2013-06-10.Retrieved2012-04-12.
  10. ^"Servicios UAV".CATUAV.Retrieved2012-04-12.
  11. ^"Avions no tripulats per observar el territori",El medi ambient(in Catalan), Catalonia Television (TV3), 2008-11-18, archived fromthe originalon 2013-01-15,retrieved2012-04-02
  12. ^Spying on Europe's farms with satellites and drones,BBC, 2012-02-08,retrieved2012-03-31
  13. ^"Los aviones no tripulados de CATUAV ayudan a evaluar los daños del terremoto de Lorca".Aerotendencias. 2011-05-16.Retrieved2012-04-12.
  14. ^"CATUAV participa en el programa SAFEDEM de la ESA".Aerotendencias. 2012-03-18.Retrieved2012-04-12.
  15. ^European Satellite Navigation Competition Results 2011,Agència Espacial Europea (ESA), November 2012, archived fromthe originalon 2012-01-06,retrieved2012-04-02
  16. ^"Premis internacionals per a Catuav".EL9NOU.CAT. 2011-11-15.Retrieved2012-04-12.
  17. ^"CATUAV | UAV Services - About us".catuav.Retrieved2016-08-02.
  18. ^SA, Premsa d´Osona."Catuav, l'empresa guanyadora dels Premis Innovacat 2012, guanya el Premi a la Innovació Social Drone".Retrieved2016-08-02.
  19. ^NacióManresa."NacióManresa: La moianesa Catuav guanya un Premi Innovacat 2012".Retrieved2016-08-02.
  20. ^"Premi Medi Ambient per a l'investigador Jaume Puigagut i a la trajectòria de la catedràtica Montserrat Soliva — Sala de Premsa - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)".upc.edu.Retrieved2016-08-02.
  21. ^"CATUAV | UAV Services - About us".catuav.Retrieved2016-08-02.
  22. ^Instrumentación, Automática e."La Nit de la Robótica reconoce a los impulsores de esta disciplina en Catalunya".Retrieved2016-08-02.
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