Mar 3 2015
Drone Aviation Holding Corp., a developer of specialized lighter-than-air aerostats and tethered drones, today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Drone Aviation Corp. (DAC), has officially launched WATT, the Company's first model of a new line of commercial-grade electric tethered drones designed to provide secure and reliable aerial monitoring for extended durations while being tethered to the ground via a high strength armored tether.
Unlike "hobbycraft drones," WATT is uniquely suited for a wide number of news gathering, industrial and emergency response applications where manned aircraft and even free-flying drones are unable to deliver the long flight duration and commercial grade real-time day/night video monitoring capabilities needed, all while operating in compliance with the new guidelines proposed by the FAA.
WATT is a complete turnkey system that can be launched within minutes of unpacking from a standard case stored in a host vehicle. When launched, WATT is designed to hover in a stationary position directly above its launch site at one of several preset altitudes of up to 300 feet. Once airborne, a highly stabilized military-grade/broadcast quality HD video imager can provide a 360° live aerial monitoring feed transmitted through the tether to its host vehicle while being wirelessly shared to a network of mobile devices such as tablets or laptop computers.
Key WATT features include:
- Unique power system provides the ability to either draw power parasitically from a host vehicle such as TV production trucks, first responder vehicles or common agriculture/infrastructure equipment with standard 120v/220v power or WATT can independently provide up to 8 hours of operation through its own ground power equipment.
- WATT is designed to carry up 10 lbs. of payload such as advanced, highly stabilized optical packages capable of delivering live broadcast-quality or military grade day/night all-weather sensors.
- Significant safety features incorporated into WATT such as fault-tolerant primary sub-systems, on-board battery back-up, automatic telemetry alerts and auto recovery/retrieve functionality for safe and simplified operation.
- Aircraft control over tether helps avoid the risks from radio frequency collisions, interference or hacking.
Drone Aviation CEO Ms. Felicia Hess stated, "WATT is the result of over 3 years dedicated development and research by our talented design team, and we are proud to now show the industry what we believe is the finest, most cost-effective commercial-grade tethered drone designed to comply with the FAA's proposed guidelines. Over the next several months, we look forward to demonstrating WATT in various upcoming live exercises with our partners and proving its unique capability to support many applications in the rapidly developing global commercial drone marketplace."