The company that makes this Airlink drone aircraft is Master Meter. Below are the company's statements about the aircraft.AIRLINX™ DRONE
While fixed network metering systems dominate water cooler conversation, Master Meter looked to the untethered skies to answer the question, “Can we get fixed network performance without the burdensome infrastructure requirements?” In conjunction with rural utilities, servicing sparsely populated areas, a solution was born utilizing battle-hardened, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV drone) technology coupled with advanced meter data collection electronics on board. Extremely sophisticated, inherently eco-friendly, compact in size and elegant in function, our AirLinx™ Data Collection System flies over a utility’s coverage area, completely self-guided by GPS, while collecting consumption information and monition for leak, theft, tamper and zero consumption (stuck meter or vacated service) alarms. AirLinx can be flown daily for an enhanced meter intelligence experience.
Preserving water is the real goal. Water is a finite resource. Supply can be increased through reaching out further or digging deeper, but water comes at a continuingly escalating cost. Technologies entering the market now help utilities act on Benjamin Franklin’s logic of “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Likewise, a drop of water saved is a drop of water produced and the key to promoting water preservation begins with accurate accounting of its journey from source to end user. One can subscribe to a prevailing logic in areas where water is abundant, that conservation is unnecessary. But this logic is faulty, and does not account for the cost of treatment-related chemicals and the high cost of electricity to process and deliver the goods. In fact, last year water utilities in the United States used 56 million kWH on water-related activities, such as pumping and treatment operations.
We can improve the preservation of water by improving the means by which we measure it, account for it, and track it. Master Meter has excelled in developing the technologies and applications required to do just that — not just on the utility side, but by empowering the user, the homeowner, the small business, the factory, or the irrigation person to understand their own consumption behavior. Educating end-users on consumption is one of the leading ways to modify their behavior, aid in conservation efforts and minimize billing disputes.
Source: US Infrastructure
Image Source: joeblack (Prison Planet Forums) from Waters & Waste Digest - June 2010
1 comment:
I hope they have a COA and have spoken to the FAA, getting a patent for something currently illegal is that possible??
lets see that bird flying, looks like a thermopile based autopilot. So it wont be reading meters on rainy days.
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