RIEGL announces its launch customer for the VQ-1560i, OPEGIEKA from Poland, and for the miniVUX-1UAV, Aethon Aerial Solutions from Canada.
OPEGIEKA is a renowned geoinformatics company with 100 employees and has been active in the fields of geomatics, IT, cartography, remote sensing and more since the year 1989.
Since August 2013, OPEGIEKA holds the official Status of a Research and Development Center (CBR) granted by the Polish Minister of Economy and is very active in the research of new technologies and workflows in different areas.
The VQ-1560i will be acquired in a specific configuration of two LiDAR channels with different wavelengths and two high-resolution medium format cameras acquiring RGB and CIR images. This fully integrated set of sensors provides an excellent data for research and project work, in the field of environmental science, forestry, and vegetation management. The new sensor is acquired in the frame of the EU co-financed project “Implementation of the results of research and development by developing a remote sensing platform based on an innovative method of vegetation inventory”.
“RIEGL’s VQ-1560i will be the core element of our new aerial survey platform, opening a new chapter in our company remote sensing activities,” commented Florian Romanowski, President of OPEGIEKA. “We have been extremely pleased with the performance and output of the RIEGL LMS-Q680i since we acquired the system 4 years ago. This gave us the confidence to purchase a new system from RIEGL in order to provide our clients with even more sophisticated data capturing solutions.”
For the new addition to RIEGL’s state of the art UAV-based LiDAR sensor family, the new miniVUX-1UAV, RIEGL received a lead order for several units from Aethon Technologies, based out of Toronto, Canada. This entry-level RIEGL UAV sensor is a very compact miniaturized 360 degree field of view LiDAR sensor with only 1.6 kilograms and especially developed for the implementation of emerging survey solutions by UAS/UAV/RPAS. The new sensor offers multi-target capability and survey-grade, informative scan data using echo digitization and online waveform processing for data acquisition. This enables it to take up to a remarkable 100,000 measurements per second and an operating altitude of 100 meters. Its very small size and low weight makes it well suited for mounting under limited weight and space conditions.
The CEO of Aethon Holdings, Mr. Alastair Jenkins, announced that Aethon will incorporate the new miniVUX-1UAV sensor in a newly designed sensor pod, where it will be integrated with GNSS, IR, UV, video and still imagery, making it “ideally suited” for the aerial survey of infrastructure and complex urban environments.
“RIEGL is leading in the development of mapping-grade UAV LiDAR solutions,” Jenkins said. “They have set a new benchmark for performance with the miniVUX-1UAV, which will allow our company to provide innovative autonomous sensors, drones, and mapping solutions for infrastructure industries across the globe. We selected the miniVUX1-UAV because it is offering survey-grade LiDAR performance with a size, weight, and cost that makes deployment on small UAVs practical for commercial applications.”