UgCS Drone Fleet Management Software to Ease Multi-Drone Missions
Managing drone fleets requires sophisticated software to control multi-drone missions. UgCS would like to offer its services.
SPH Engineering specializes in developing unmanned systems software and consulting for “smart planes” and helicopters. Thursday, the company announced UgCS, software which intends to provide a centralized drone fleet management system for clients in need of single or multi-drone missions. While SPH Engineering is young and small, founded in 2013 and consisting of 20 employees, the company seems to be onto something with UgCS and its abilities to control and manage drone flights.
According to the press release, the UgCS platform is targeted at law enforcement, firefighting, security, and search-and-rescue industries. The goal is to make first response situations more efficient, as well as providing the ability to monitor hazardous, dangerous situations. Think hostage situation, or inspecting a burning building’s structural integrity. It’s no surprise that we’ve seen numerous companies join this niche of the drone industry, as both law enforcement and rescue operations have increasingly benefitted from the capabilities unmanned aerial vehicles can provide.
This drone-management solution will be presented at MiliPol 2017, the “Leading Event for Homeland Security” which takes place in Paris from November 21-24. Reportedly, UgCS will allow operators on the ground to track real-time positions of UAVs in the air, while being fed livestreams of the drones’ cameras. The maps utilized are shared amongst operators, and can be marked to signify areas of interest, or to point field operators in the right direction in case a UAV has crashed or requires inspection. Operators can even regain manual control over a UAV and its camera, making this vertically integrated software a pretty cohesive platform.
Here's a promotional video that details some of the most recent updates and features.
In the wake of certain cyber-vulnerability concerns in the drone industry, UgCS’ press release makes sure to mention that privacy and security of data are of paramount concern to SPH Engineering. Reportedly, “complete data security” can be enabled to process data in a private network, transferrable securely without an internet connection, presumably a hardware component to be connected via cable from device to computer. Janis Kuze, sales director of SPH Engineering, is definitely selling the product well, in his statement.
Kuze said, “UgCS centralized drone management solution enables effective UAV integration into emergency and security command centers. UgCS and drone usage during dangerous operations or at hard to reach areas provides a live preview of the situation not only to personnel in-field, but for officers at Command center. This enables more precise situation assessment, decision making and effective management of first responder teams, providing more efficient resolution of disaster situation or even saving lives. The solution has already been deployed to a capital city police department and will be presented at MiliPol 2017.” In order to provide this solutions technology to as wide a market as possible, UgCS was developed without a vendor lock, meaning, it’ll support DJI, Yuneec, Lockheed Martin and MAVLink drones.
We’ll see how UgCS fares at MiliPol 2017 next week, and what kind of reception this particular drone-fleet management system receives over its contemporaries. We recently reported on vHive, which seems like a pretty sophisticated, A.I.-infused drone fleet management system software of its own. There's a lot of competition out there, and UgCS will have to offer something new or refined to customers in order to stand out. Stay tuned.
