CEAC-2020-04-April
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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