The activities of the division Autonomous Measuring Systems focus on the sale of sensor systems and services for and with civilian, unmanned, autonomously operating airborne platforms known as unmanned aircraft system (UAS).
In order to set up this new trading area, a feasibility study was carried out followed by test deployments sensor carrier platforms for UASs. In the context of these research activities these platforms were referred to Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) until 2009. All research and development projects were joint projects in collaboration with universities and internationally active research facilities:
The feasibility study "Civilian UAV" in 2006 clearly demonstrated the need for UAS applications where operators would be overly challenged or endangered through actual presence in the target area. UAS deployments also serve in operations which would be too complex for manned aircraft.
Following this study, a Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft (VTOL) experimental platform was developed within in the project UAS SensorClient. The first sensor integrated on this platform was a fourwheel, stabilized and analog camera system. The data acquisition is based on the concept of the MEDUSA sensor network, which is in use by OPTIMARE since 1996 for manned missions.
SPECEYE extends the existing sensor network by near-range sensors. These near-range sensors are optimized for survey and monitoring tasks where the distance to the object remains between 1 m and 100 m. Interfaces and sensors for multi-spectral, high-resolution camera systems (UV, RGB, NIR, LWIR) and a laser-based survey system (LIDAR) were integrated.
In general, the sensor network is custom-fit and the applications range from measurement to observation and/or inspection tasks.
OPTIMARE constantly extends their product and service line of the Autonomous Observing Systems division. At the moment further applications and sensor packages are prepared for the areas of archaeology, environmental physics, geophysics, glaciology and radiation protection. This range of areas of applications may be extended any time.
