Charge according to the weather: in the Russian Federation they have created a drone port to work in extreme conditions

Russian developers have created a drone port to work in extreme temperature conditions. It can be installed on any hard surface - from asphalt to the roof of a household building. Engineers reported that the station will allow charging UAVs even at extreme temperatures, for example, in deserts or in Arctic conditions. Experts consider the invention useful and believe that the technology will be of interest to BRICS countries and the Middle East.

What kind of vehicles the new drone port serves

Engineers at Rusdronoport have developed a new drone charging station that will make it possible to carry out work at extreme temperatures, for example in deserts or in Arctic conditions. The company is among the participants of the Aeronet STI market, and the project was first mentioned on the sidelines of the Barkemp-2024 National Technological Revolution 20.35 conference.

- It is a fully autonomous robotic station for replacing drone batteries, which is especially important for tasks requiring a large number of sorties or emergency response to a call. Potential customers are government agencies and businesses that need to fly two or three times a day and cover an area of hundreds of square kilometers. Dronoport can be used, among other things, to track the status of construction work, mining, protection of industrial facilities and rapid response to emergencies," said Nikolay Ryashin, CEO of the company.

Compared to the previous generation droneport, it is three times lighter and two times smaller, he added. The device can be installed on any hard surface: concrete, asphalt or the roof of a hut. The station is resistant to extreme heat and cold - the device can operate at temperatures from -45 to +50 °C, and is additionally protected from dust and moisture. Currently, the droneport is capable of servicing the DJI Matrice 350 RTK industrial UAV, and in 2025 it will be adapted to work with two models of domestic UAVs.

According to Nikolay Ryashin, the droneport needs no more than a minute to change the battery, the time of preparation for a new flight between mission stages is about 2.5 minutes. As the expert noted, the next droneport, which is scheduled to enter the market in 2025, will be able to change not only the battery, but also the carried cargo. The project will be suitable not only for the Russian market. There are plans to export the station to South Africa, BRICS countries and the Middle East, in particular to Saudi Arabia.

How the novelty is evaluated by experts

Droneport makes it possible to use the drone when it is needed, significantly saves the time of preparing the drone for departure, reduces downtime. In automatic mode, the received information, photo or video can be used immediately, noted Alexey Varyatchenko, General Director of BAS. According to him, this is the next step towards mass application of drones. The system allows for significant savings, as one operator can control a dozen droneports, which themselves have a high degree of autonomy, the expert added.

- For the survey of area or linear objects, a droneport is simply necessary. If we survey, for example, the perimeter of an object for unauthorized violation, the integrity of fences, in order to search for traces of presence. The drone can perform these works in autonomous mode, and the operator at a distance can be engaged only in data inspection, or in the future to transfer this function exclusively into software and work only with the facts of deviations from the norm. The same applies to the observation of linear and production facilities, within the framework of aviation forest protection and other areas of economic activity, - said the commercial director of the company "Laboratory of the Future" Pavel Kamnev.

The expert notes that autonomous drone ports are the future for the ABC, and it is with them that unmanned aerial vehicles should begin. However, there is still no clear understanding of their application prospects on the part of operators, which significantly hinders market development.

- Until the market starts mass application of unmanned aviation, we should not expect any savings," the expert believes.

Alexey Varyatchenko believes that the demand for such developments will grow. According to his estimates, the construction industry alone may use hundreds of drone ports. Monitoring, public order protection, "last mile" delivery - these are the areas where the use of such devices will be most effective, said the expert.

One drone port can serve a variety of tasks: forestry surveys, search for illegal dumps, clearings, cadastral work, search for missing people. The main obstacle is compliance with the law on state secrecy, which requires coordinating surveys and declassifying images before further processing. Although there is no such barrier for cargo or agrodrones, there is a high cost, difficulties in operation and maintenance, and a low degree of unification. Thus, this segment requires large capital investments, but the prospects are corresponding, summarized Yuri Molodykh, Director of the Center for Development of the System of Technological Competitions of the NTI Foundation.