After four years of operating in stealth mode, Danvers startup CyPhy Works emerged from the shadows this week, unveiling two unmanned aerial vehicles that soldiers and police can use for reconnaissance.
"Rather than go public with what our intentions were, we wanted to wait until we had the technology sorted out sufficiently," said Jason Walker, lead roboticist at the company, which was founded by iRobot co-founder Helen Grenier. "We wanted to make sure we had the technology working, rather than create hype around an idea."
Although unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, are not uncommon, given all the U.S. military drone operations overseas, CyPhy Works' differ in that they operate via a thin strand of two copper wires that allows them to run for a virtually unlimited duration while transmitting high-definition video.
The tether also eliminates common UAV pitfalls such as wireless jamming, detection and interception by the enemy, said Frank Tobe, editor of the Robot Report, which tracks the business of robotics.
CyPhy has developed a drone duo so far:
• The Extreme Access System for Entry, or EASE, is 12 inches tall by 16 inches wide, travels horizontally and can be used for building searches, bomb detection, hostage situations, rescue operations and bridge inspections.
• The Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications, or PARC, is 55 inches in diameter and can operate in bad weather and travel vertically up to 1,000 feet in the air — far higher than a camera on a tower at a combat outpost and much less obtrusive than the kind of blimps the Army also uses.
"There's a saying in the Army that when the blimps are in the air, peace breaks out," Walker said. "To the extent that we can be in the air more often and without the enemy seeing us, hopefully peace will break out a lot more often."
Although he declined to say how much either device costs, the PARC also would be a less costly alternative to using helicopters for long periods of time to cover events like last month's collision on the Green Line, he said.
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