Project description
Bring in the drones to help fight fires
The efforts of firefighters and public safety teams to emergencies such as blazing buildings and rescue missions require aerial support for awareness information. Drones are essential but they have limitations due to their reduced flight time, potential user errors and limited safety when flying in urban areas. The EU-funded Fotokite project proposes a new instrument that increases aerial situational awareness via information services. Fotokite’s tethered UAV systems can be launched from the fire vehicles autonomously and provide live thermal and visuals to the forces operating in the ground. The system consists of hardware sold to customers with an annual service contract subscription.
Objective
Fotokite aims to provide firefighting and public safety teams with a new tool to safely and easily access aerial situational awareness information to help in their mission to save lives and preserve property. Fotokite has developed a vehicle-integrated and tethered UAV technology to deliver mission-critical information to firefighters during emergency response situations. Use of drones at the exploration of emergency zones is limited due to safety, regulatory, and technical capabilities. Drones that are piloted manually are prone to user error, unsafe in cities and around crowds of people, and do not scale operationally. Flight time is also a fundamental limitation, as free flying systems are generally limited to 20-30 minutes of flight time. Despite these disadvantages, traditional drones are increasingly used to improve Public Safety team operations.
Fotokite’s tethered UAV systems can be launched from the fire trucks autonomously, with the single push of a button. Fotokite systems fly themselves and stream live thermal + visual video to firefighters on the ground, providing mission-critical situational awareness to help lifesaving operations.
Fotokite has immediately created a substantial demand, proven by strong customer feedback and significant market uptake. Fotokite systems have successfully been implemented in live fire responses, search & rescue missions, and training exercises to help firefighting teams.
Revenue is generated by selling hardware systems for an upfront cost plus an annual service contract subscription, which includes dedicated support, remote data accessibility for teams, and secure data management services. The requested grant is needed to develop scaled-up manufacturing processes and significantly accelerate market introduction with this game-changing technology. Successful and wide-scale implementation will help improve the safety of firefighting and public safety teams and increase effectiveness on public lifesaving operations.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinator
8005 ZURICH
Switzerland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.