This sponsored article was created by Insight magazine, the sponsored content division of MHM Publishing.
OFIL Airborne continues to innovate and drive the aerial inspection market forward. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous operations, and never-before-integrated sensors and optics are transforming the way companies and governments collect data, keeping aircrews and the public safe.
With decades of experience at the forefront of the industry, the OFIL Airborne team are no strangers to setting the standards for others to follow. “Our carbon-fiber manufacturing processes and fiber-optic data and communications architecture have always allowed us to push the limits, with the highest specification sensors, the biggest lenses, and the fastest data rates,” said Ray Hyland, OFIL director of airborne solutions.
Founder and CEO Dr. Peter Morawitz added: “We are now producing systems with HD, 4K, even 8K resolutions, full frame still-cameras with 400mm zoom lenses, the most sensitive UV sensors, the highest resolution IR cameras with zoomable radiometric output, OGI sensors for gas detection, automatic wildfire-intensity maps and orthomosaic outputs. We have even integrated forward-looking LiDAR into our gimbals for unprecedented data capture on every flight.”
Safety, efficiency, and ease of use are the driving factors behind all this innovation, ensuring crews are operating at safer flight profiles, making fewer passes, and focusing more on flying and less on data-collection.
“Our intuitive touch-screen controls let operators get what they need, easily and quickly,” Hyland said. “Not only does data quality improve, but the learning curve is shorter.”
In firefighting scenarios, auto-mapping tools and easy gimbal install by pilots mean small crews can produce high-quality maps in real-time, without bringing a GIS support team.
“It allows an operator to get maximum utility for a helicopter in the field,” Morawitz said. “Whether you are mapping a fire, or inspecting a gas field or powerline, you want to produce the best product but still keep it easy for crews to use.”
To help keep crews in the air, all OFIL systems are brought back for an annual service, at no cost to the customer.
“We do a full overhaul, like you would do on an aircraft engine. You start each season with effectively a brand-new system, so operators don’t have unexpected downtime,” said Peter Schaffer, head of global business development. “And we can even perform software updates over the air.”
The OFIL team are continuously innovating for greater safety and efficiencies, in the air and on the ground.
