88 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION
for their commercial drones,” he said.
“New Zealand is a first-world
country that is highly respected
around the world. Operators can come
here to test our data link and fully
instrumented test range year round.”
Skybase is also one of the
companies about to start trials with
the country’s air navigation service
provider, Airways NZ, to show how it
can be interoperable with its system.
Read said being a data provider is
about a mesh network – the ability to
send information to platforms with
multiple pathways without any loss of
bandwidth.
“You can’t have people talk about
delivering a payload and using
BLOS unless you have a high-quality
network. We literally have the world’s
best airborne mesh network with up to
100 MB of data.
“We have a CAA
Part 100-compliant safety
management system, a full set of
operating procedures, arguably the
most advanced regularity system in
the Asia Pacific region; we all come
from aviation backgrounds and we
have our own compliant test facilities.
Skybase data is also fully
encrypted in-house, eliminating
the risk of exposure by outside
contractors.
The revenue stream from airborne
data comes from aerial mapping to
surveillance in sectors from mining to
road projects, stockpiles, land design,
urban planning, working with fire and
environmental agencies and tactical
operations with the police.
Doing good
Another focus is the global “Drones for
Good” humanitarian work. Skybase
will work with UNICEF in Vanuatu in
September delivering vaccines using
high band connectivity either through
a radio frequency, satellite, 4G or a
relay node.
“With our powerful network we can
be sitting on a laptop in Christchurch
controlling one of our drones in
South-East Asia in real time and we
can also log into the picture of the
drone on a mobile phone. In a tactical
situation you can have real-time
pictures without interfering with any
other network. You can also send voice
and video data to anyone with a smart
phone who has a VPN login.
“The reason we established
business in New Zealand is because of
our relationship with the CAA and its
forward thinking nature,” Read said.
“It was a stroke of genius for CAA
to write the Part 102 regulations as
performance-based rules. It requires
the industry to prove to the regulator
how it is going to keep [their drone
operation] safe as opposed to the CAA
being prescriptive.
“We can run technology through
traditional aviation systems to work
out whether it meets the intent of the
regulators.”
Skybase is looking for PhD students
to work with its staff of 13. Kelvin
Barnsdale, Canterbury University’s
former senior research engineer in
the Spatial Engineering Research
Centre is also on board. He specialises
in electronic systems in harsh
environments.“Kiwis go really well in the
innovation space doing more with less,
but often need help to scale overseas,”
Read said.
Any future funding would be to do
with scaling, but it was revenue that
grew the business.”Altus Intelligence
The drone hardware manufacturer
with its unique gas-fired parachute
and beyond the line-of-sight
capabilities was founded in 2014
by Shaun Mitchell (chief executive)
Simon Morris, Ryan Cadwallader,
Michael Long and Gareth Prentice.
Altus has grown rapidly from its
Hamilton headquarters. Last year it
opened its Altus Made in the USA
office in Cartersville, north of Atlanta
in the United States, bringing the total
number of staff to nine.
It was initially a service provider,
adapting drones for specific needs,
primarily in the mapping and
survey field as well as some aerial
photography and cinematography.
After finding a shortage of commercial
grade, rugged and reliable sensor-
friendly equipment for clients’ specific
needs Altus started manufacturing
its own unmanned aircraft. When
they found themselves competing on
the service side with customers who
bought their equipment they decided
to concentrate on the hardware.
With China controlling 70 per cent
of the world’s UA manufacturing,
small companies like Altus can’t
compete on price so the point of
difference had to be around capability,
applications, robustness and support.‘Kiwis
go really
well in the
innovation
space doing
more with
less.’
MICHAEL READAerial mapping with an Altus
unmanned helicopter.ALTUS
INTELLIGENCE