Emergency One, a Scottish manufacturer of specialist fire and rescue service appliances, is to distribute an actively tethered unmanned aerial system (UAS) across the country, providing mission-critical situational awareness from elevated perspectives.
According to Emergency One, the Fotokit UAS saves fleet resources by launching, flying, and landing with the push of a button, with no piloting necessary.
Furthermore, as the Fotokite Sigma system requires no setup time or calibration it can provide rapid aerial overviews of an incident.
Reaching a height of 45m (150ft), the tethered UAS has a 24-hour flight time, which Emergency One said allows for true, everyday autonomous flight.
The drone also features a thermal RGB camera with 3-axis gimbal stabilisation on a 1.2kg carbon fibre frame and can be deployed in rain, snow, and windy conditions.
The Fotokite Sigma is available in three configurations: rooftop box, transport case and tray mount. The rooftop box configuration enables elevated situational awareness immediately and completely hands-free operation.
Designed for integration into a range of various vehicle types, the transport case configuration allows for use of the Fotokite Sigma interchangeably between vehicles and offers incident response scene flexibility when deploying the system.
The tray mount configuration allows for close integration of Fotokite systems into the side compartments of any apparatus.
What’s more, each configuration provides fire-fighting fleets actionable information throughout missions and the ability to capture full incident response records without interruption.
Through the Fotokite Live operation software, fleets can access mission critical situational awareness information on included tablets, enabling firefighters to make information-driven decisions through a simple interface.
An integrated mobile data modem is also available, streaming both cameras remotely to user-specified IP addresses.
The solution has also been field tested by firefighters. This included live fire responses to search and rescue missions. Emergency One added firefighters are now using Fotokite Sigma on a daily basis as an essential tool for their missions.
Additionally, the solution has been authorised and recognised by aviation authorities as a safer alternative to traditional tethered drones and free-flying public safety drone systems, according to Emergency One.
