When Consortiq call themselves drone enablers they’re usually talking about enterprise drone programs, not an actual drone. Fire drone, however, was just that, developing a robotic system for live monitoring of fires that analyses the particles in the smoke.
Working with the University of Southampton on the airframe, and INSA on the sensor and software behind it the Consortiq team have spent two years bringing these technologies together to conduct live flight trials at the fire service college over the last few weeks. You may have seen their posts about setting things on fire.
The potential of this technology is huge from monitoring chemical fire composition for harmful emissions, to analysing the elements in a volcanic ash cloud to determine their impact on aircraft engines (and therefore whether we need to close airspace or not).
This project was one small part of the Interreg channel marche program, which comprised 51 projects and over 400 collaborators. Projects ranged from proving Tidal energy effectiveness (ORE catapult, Simon Cheeseman) to using flax fibres to develop new composite materials for boat foils and turbine blades (University of Portsmouth, Professor Hom Dhakal ).
Some of the Consortiq leadership attended an event at the Eden Project, learning all about the projects that have taken place and telling people about how they set things on fire so they could fly a drone through the smoke!
The team hope that these projects live on and achieve the full impact on our lives that they have the potential for.