SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, May 17, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Skypersonic, a subsidiary of Red Cat Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: RCAT) ("Red Cat'' or the "Company"), a hardware-enabled software provider to the drone industry, highlights a two-year program whereby General Motors used the Skycopter™, a drone specifically designed and equipped to perform inspections safely in challenging environments, to perform crane rail inspections in all 19 of its North American stamping (metalworking) facilities.
“Using the Skycopter, we are able to capture information that is relevant to the maintenance of our facilities and their internal structures in a relatively short amount of time. We can capture information in two to three hours versus what would normally take eight to twelve hours and that would also include shutting the facility down completely, erecting scaffolds, and hoisting personnel in the air and onto the rails for manual inspection. The Skycopter provides an inspection and data collection service that is faster than traditional methods while also providing a much safer work environment for our employees,” commented John Brown, Supervisor of Reality Capture for General Motors North America.
“In our two years of rigorous use with the Skycopter, we’ve exploited every potential point of weakness of the system, and nobody has taxed this technology like we have. We have learned a tremendous amount about the inspection capabilities of the Skycopter and found its sweet spot. I can now talk with anybody at General Motors and show them what we’ve done and ask them why they would want to go anywhere else and do anything different for facility inspection services. We are trying to get the Skycopter to be a standard piece of equipment that we use across all our plants,” Brown concluded.
The full inspection program took over two years, including the initial planning and pilot training phases, while the inspection process across all 19 facilities required 14 months. The program consisted of video recording of 50,000 cumulative feet of crane rails captured from 200+ flight hours by the Skycopter across all 19 facilities for subsequent analysis by structural engineers. The Skycopter was piloted by General Motors personnel at all times following the completion of an initial pilot training program with Skypersonic. Based on learnings from this initial inspection program, General Motors believes it can materially reduce the next round of crane rail inspections from 14 months for all 19 North American stamping facilities to six months. Moreover, General Motors is evaluating the use of the Skycopter in other inspection applications across additional plants and facilities.
“I am proud that Skypersonic is able to contribute to the advancement of industrial inspections by providing advanced drone technology that reduces cost and increases workplace safety. This General Motors case study is an excellent case study in how drone technology and proper training can be used to modernize legacy inspection processes,” said Skypersonic founder Giuseppe Santangelo.
To see a video of General Motors representative John Brown describing the use of the Skycopter for inspection applications at the General Motors facilities, please click here.
About Red Cat Holdings, Inc.
Red Cat provides drone-based products, services, and solutions through its five subsidiaries, and services the enterprise, military, and consumer markets. Teal Drones is a leader in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), and its Golden Eagle is one of only five drones approved by the Department of Defense for reconnaissance, public safety, and inspection applications. Skypersonic’s technology enables drones to complete inspection services in locations where GPS is not available, yet still record and transmit data even while being operated from thousands of miles away. Fat Shark is a leading provider of First Person View (FPV) video goggles. Rotor Riot, LLC is a reseller of FPV drones and equipment, primarily to the consumer marketplace. Learn more at https://www.redcatholdings.com/.
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