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Simplifying Aerial Intelligence

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - DroneGrid (Simplifying Aerial Intelligence)

Okres sprawozdawczy: 2019-09-01 do 2021-01-31

The drone industry faces several key challenges that prevent fast adoption of drone technology by mainstream enterprises into their daily operations:
- Complex drone regulations
- Expensive drone systems
- Enterprises not used to deal with drone operators or drone hardware
- 3rd party drone operators are not domain experts in the customer’s businesses
- End-to-end solutions that can integrate into existing enterprise systems
Sitemark is a sophisticated aerial intelligence enterprise platform that revolutionises 2D and 3D inspections of assets using drones to collect actionable data that enables enterprises to take better decisions, improves staff safety, asset efficiency and digitise their field information.To make this happen,Sitemark builds on a unique combination of three technologies:
1. An enterprise platform that enables its customers to work with aerial data and integrate aerial intelligence into their workflows in a seamless easy to use manner.
2. Flight automation algorithms that significantly simplify data capture for complex missions by automating drone pre-flight planning, actual flight and post processing.To enable high consistency within data acquisition which is key for providing industry specific analytics.
3. An API layer that enables various third-party services to be integrated into the platform that significantly improve data quality, and ultimately the customer, drone pilot experience.
This complete end-to-end control enables Sitemark to deliver solutions for its customers that are unique in the market and provide a significant competitive advantage that few players are able to match.
As part of the H2020 SME project Sitemark is evolving to become the commercial drone system that provides an end-to-end solution towards multiple industries.In order to achieve the project goal, the solution needs to consist of a full-fledged and intelligent cloud, a smart drone pilot app and integration into commercially available drones.Sitemark is improving the 3D capabilities as well as deploying enhanced machine learning abilities for further detection of new anomalies within existing and new industries which are key to international scaling.
As part of the H2020 SME project Sitemark has revamped its entire solution architecture into a modular-based solution combined with Innovative AI and ML ops.This SMART architecture allows Sitemark’s customers to deploy their own applications and use cases.
The Sitemark engineering team followed a beachhead strategy.They focused first on the solar vertical which the team understood well and from there used this know-how to springboard into new applications within the vertical and eventually entering new verticals such as Construction, Mining, and performing early trials and POCs into vertical infrastructures such as Bridges,Wind and Telecommunications sector.
The focus on the inspections vertical first allowed Sitemark to build relationships and understanding of the challenges in each aspect of the project and was thus able to build and test solutions across the various aspects of the lifecycle of the asset.This approach allowed customers to get a flavor of the solution through the trials and then deploy the solution into their existing workflows and projects and after completion of trials. Furthermore, the features developed were deployed within the solution in an agnostic way, which allowed customers from other verticals to also test and deploy the solution.Trial projects were completed within the Wind,Telecoms,Road Construction and Quarrying sector. Vertical infrastructures such as Wind Turbines,Telecommunications Towers and Bridges were also inspected during the project. Our solution within the construction vertical was deployed and tested by customers such as Vinci,Frankie and Engie.The Sitemark team focused primarily on Roads and Quarries, as this allowed the team to gain significant insights into the life cycle of such projects and build tools and features into the platform. It enabled the customers to gain valuable insights into their projects and ultimately significant ROI with regard to time saved, improved resource utilization, improvement in precision and accuracy and most important, digitization of their field assets.Thanks to taking the smart entry approach, Sitemark was able to quickly gain significant traction with existing and new customers in the new vertical.It resulted into significant increase in the number of hectares scanned since 2018.
Sitemark has performed various trials across energy, construction and mining industries in over 10 countries.Pilot customers where trials were made public via blog posts or sharing at events included Engie,Vinci,Franki,Eneco,Sonnedix,Bouygues,Orix and Enerparc with whom trials were performed in Chile,Senegal,US,Japan,Belgium,France,Italy and Germany.Results from these events were shared either through social media, webinars or industry events with our partners.
Sitemark understands the responsibility to provide a positive contribution to the world.
Here are the four sustainable development goals Sitemark tackles with its solutions:
1.Affordable and Clean Energy-one of the largest markets Sitemark operates in is the Energy sector, and in particular the Renewables market.Sitemark provides organizations in the solar and wind industry with technology that can help them maximize the efficiency of their operations.Through the course of the year and trial and non-trial projects Sitemark was able to increase power production by on average 4% for customers such as Orix (as published in Customer Webinar with Orix) and on average 2% for customers such as Engie (as published in Customer Webinar with Engie on 04 September 2019).
2.Decent Work and Economic Growth-a key component of our end-to-end solution are the drone pilots that facilitate the data acquisition process for our enterprise customers.Sitemark puts local drone pilots at work, creating a common bridge between these pilots, the enterprises, and industry analytics experts. As the number of licensed pilots continues to grow, we look forward to continuing expanding our network.We're also proud of the people who contribute every day to build the ground-technology that helps our customers every single day.
3.Industry Innovation, and Infrastructure-our platform provides a comprehensive technology asset to the Infrastructure and Construction industry.Enterprises in these sectors have access to aerial data of their sites that can help them build the infrastructure of the future.This data gives them insights at a completely different level, allowing them to better track and map construction progression more easily and safer. Our Construction and Infrastructure solution provides enterprises with the ability to fully manage workflows to their specific needs: from planning with our surveyor-grade terrain functionality to 3D scan capabilities to monitor site progress.
4.Responsible Consumption and Production-we have also focused on the mining industry which can digitize their operations. Examples include crack detection to reduce wastage, better road planning for fuel savings and volumetric stockpile measurements. We also work on agriculture projects that provide insights through the use of aerial imaging. These help detect diseases which allow a fast response which could save an entire orchard. As soon as these issues are discovered, farmers can monitor and apply the required remedies more precisely.
POC with Franki on Vertical Infrastructure Inspections
Presentation with on Construction Monitoring & Inspections with Eurovia (Vinci). UAV Expo, Amsterdam
Sitemark presenting at UAV EXPO in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on 08-09 April 2019
Orix Site Kyushu (scanned in 2018)
Smart entry into construction and mining since early 2019
Presenting Sitemark Platform at Solar Asset Management México
Presenting the Sitemark platform together with customers (ENERPARC) Germany’s largest Asset Owner.
Solar Asset Management Europe in Milano, Italy on 23-24 October 2018
Sitemark’s innovative modular architecture
Significant traction achieved in the last 2 years within construction and mining
Orix Site Kyushu (scanned in 2018 and 2019 after issues identified in 2018 were resolved)
Sitemark booth in Making Solar Bankable 2020 (Amsterdam)
Sitemark’s traction over the years in the solar industry
Sitemark’s solution expansion to cover multiple phases of an asset
Presenting the Sitemark inspection results from trial projects in Chile together with Engie