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Fri March 29 2024

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Grant awarded for pioneering drone survey work

18 Jun 19 Amey’s drone joint venture has won government funding for a project to collect real time data from the railway infrastructure with Network Rail.

VTOL's The Flying Wing
VTOL's The Flying Wing

AmeyVTOL has won funding from Innovate UK under the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) for its aerial survey work on the railways.

AmeyVTOL’s long range hybrid drone, known as The Flying Wing, can fly on up to 100km and has built in leading edge sensor technology. This means AmeyVTOL can use artificial intelligence to process data and provide automatic defect detection. The drone can generate digital asset models.

AmeyVTOL is a joint venture between Amey and VTOL Technologies, a specialist in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones as they are more commonly known.

Nicola Hindle, Amey’s managing director for consulting and rail, said: “We are delighted to be working with InnovateUK and DfT on this revolutionary project. We have utilised our expertise in drone technology and data processing to bring to the market something that doesn’t currently exist; we are excited about where The Flying Wing will take us.”

The bid for funding presented the intention of flying and operating a drone beyond visual line of sight, which means carrying out asset and track inspections from the skies, removing workers from harm at the side of the rail network.

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MPU
MPU

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