I am not going to lie. I was ignorant about the regulations with regard to Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS), AKA drone, until now. I never knew, at least in stateside, you are not allowed to fly said aircraft over groups of people. I know, this should be no brainer because, in an event of a midair failure, the risks of injuring those people down there is very real.
Understanding this, Indemnis, an Alaska-based tech company, not only developed a drone-saver that will save a drone from high impact crash, but also mitigate the risks when a drone flies over crowds. So, yeah, Indemnis has created a drone Drone/UAV recovery solutions, AKA parachute system, which it calls Nexus.
Now, the thing is, parachute for drone isn’t new. One guy bravely took on the challenge several years ago without much success because, he was just one guy, and DJI has its own official version too (which the company is still selling, btw), but Indemnis is the first company to have such a device certified. The company has recently secured the ASTM 3322-18 Standard Specification for Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) Parachutes.
Here’s what the ASTM 3322-18 is about:
“ASTM 3322-18 Standard Specification for Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) Parachutes is a technical standard that defines the test requirements of a deployable parachute recovery system that is designed to be integrated into an sUAS and lessen the impact energy of the system in the event of a failure.”
Nexus retrofits to a DJI drone and it has sensors to detect any anomalies during flight. If a drone failure is detected, a ballistic launcher will deploy the parachute at speeds up to 90 mph (about 144 km/h) and taking just 30 ms to do so. To get certified, Indemnis drone/USV recovery system have to pass a string of tests, including 45 functionality tests across five different failure scenarios.
Following the certification, Indemnis is making the system available commercially. The price for each unit is unknown, though. If you are keen, you will need to get in touch with Indemnis for the pricing. At the time of this writing, Nexus is only available for DJI Inspired 2, but company said solutions for Matrice 200 and 600 series will arrive later this year.
Images: Indemnis.
Source: Engadget.
