Esri announces two major capabilities in its UAS flight planning and processing solution

October 13, 2020 | AUVSI News

Esri has announced two major capabilities in its UAS flight planning and processing solution, Site Scan for ArcGIS, that will enable governments and critical infrastructure organizations to meet hardware and software regulations in the US and Europe. 

Esri has an established partnership with Auterion that will allow security-conscious US organizations to use Site Scan to plan and execute missions with the Auterion-powered Freefly Astro drone.

For organizations in Europe with data sovereignty requirements, a new and fully independent instance of Site Scan for ArcGIS has been deployed to European servers, which ensures that organizational data resides within the region.

“The relationship we have established with Auterion is key in being able to offer high-quality, secure drone software to our US customers looking to take advantage of our advanced, secure, drone-based imagery collection and management platform,” says Richard Cooke, Esri director of imagery and remote sensing.

“Additionally, through the development of the EU deployment, an even wider range of customers located in Europe will be able to maintain their data and data processing locally.”

Organizations that require drone imagery for visual inspections, site monitoring, asset management, and situational awareness use Site Scan for ArcGIS, which is an all-in-one, cloud-based drone mapping solution for managing fleets and collecting, processing, analyzing, and sharing data products. The solution is used by a variety of industries including architecture, engineering, construction, natural resources, infrastructure, and government. Esri says that Site Scan provides value to customers through core capabilities such as scalability, collaboration, time saving, and now enhanced security functionality.

With the US government having recently issued a growing number of advisory warnings and bans on the use of drones that pose security risks, these precautions have “adversely impacted federal agencies and private firms that manage critical infrastructure, causing them to adopt incongruous drone data capturing and processing workflows that consist of multiple vendor solutions,” according to Esri. Now, the company can offer these agencies a single, end-to-end drone solution that integrates Freefly Astro, using US Department of Defense-approved Blue small UAS software architecture from Auterion, and is fully supported by Site Scan.

“Our expertise in providing an enterprise drone platform based on open-source software enabled us to meet the needs of the US government and governments worldwide,” explains Dave Sharpin, CEO, Auterion Government Solutions. “We are very excited to partner with Esri and provide [its] users with our groundbreaking technology.”

By law within Europe, data from publicly funded or critical infrastructure projects cannot leave the European Union (EU), Esri notes. Site Scan for ArcGIS has been deployed to a server cluster in Ireland to enable a scalable drone workflow. European customers that require their data not be transmitted outside the region can now leverage this server cluster to meet project requirements.

The European deployment of Site Scan is available today. The Freefly Astro and Site Scan integration will be available for customers by December.