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Techline<br />

CT Drone Companies Combine Forces<br />

to Command Air, Land and Sea<br />

HARTFORD, Conn. — Drones are commonly known for flying<br />

in the sky, but a new breed is rolling around on the ground<br />

and swimming in the ocean. Now, in an alliance straight out<br />

of science fiction, two CT-based drone companies are joining<br />

forces to take on the task of protecting our planet using<br />

both airborne and amphibious drones by automating operations<br />

in security, environmental and even military fronts,<br />

globally.<br />

Harford-based Aquiline Drones (AD), a premiere Cloud and<br />

drone solutions company, will be powering GuardBot's<br />

spherical and amphibious robotic vehicles via the AD Cloud<br />

(or ADC). Like Amazon's AWS, ADC is quickly becoming the<br />

industry Gold Standard for all Unmanned Vehicle (UV) operations,<br />

taking full advantage of its capacity, modularity and<br />

truly salient features for autonomous assignments, operations<br />

and quests.<br />

“Our new alliance with Aquiline Drones now gives us the<br />

ability to program our bots with advanced AI for complicated<br />

missions in surveillance, security and detection. And<br />

with AD’s focus on U.S. supply-chain manufacturing, this is<br />

truly pioneering a new direction for drone technology in the<br />

U.S.,” noted Peter Muhlrad, president of GuardBot.<br />

allows it to easily provide forward and backward motion as<br />

well as make 360-degree turns. They can operate continuously<br />

for up to 25 hours on one charge and reach speeds of<br />

up to 12 mph on land and 3 mph in water. Each GuardBot is<br />

equipped with pods on its right and left sides that contains<br />

interchangeable sensors, such as video cameras, thermal,<br />

infrared, microphones GPS and audio for continuous content<br />

gathering, transmission of data and constant communication<br />

with command control.<br />

“In the coming months, ADC will undergo rigorous testing,<br />

hosting and management trials with GuardBot’s proprietary<br />

software application. ADC’s highly modular AI architecture<br />

is suitable for crucial customization of solutions typically not<br />

available in the open marketplace. And, as an unmanned<br />

vehicle cloud, no other cloud platform provides the same<br />

level of robustness and salient features that enable complex<br />

mission planning scenarios, autonomous flight and ground<br />

operations powered by AI and IoT infrastructure management,”<br />

said Barry Alexander, founder and CEO of Aquiline<br />

Drones and AD Cloud Services. “We eagerly anticipate inte-<br />

“GuardBot was initially conceived for a planetary mission on<br />

Mars. As such, our robots can traverse all terrains, including<br />

paved roads, dirt paths, dunes, snowy fields, sloped mountains,<br />

or even water surfaces. GuardBot spherical robots can<br />

even navigate upstream,” said Muhlrad. “And with the right<br />

sensor, camera and/or acoustic package, the use cases are<br />

endless,” Muhlrad notes. “Our new collaboration with Aquiline<br />

Drones couldn’t be timelier! The first batch of GuardBots<br />

will be manufactured at AD’s downtown Hartford facility<br />

starting in May,” added Muhlrad.<br />

GuardBot’s circular drones range from 6.5 inches to 7 feet in<br />

diameter and move using a patented drive-mechanism that<br />

“ 40 TONS? SURE,<br />

WE CAN GET THAT<br />

OUT OF THERE,”<br />

56<br />

| Chief Engineer

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