In February, Japanese technology company Terra Drone Corporation launched its Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) solution in Australia and the company has announced Australia as its location of choice to base its Asia Pacific operations.
Speaking exclusively to Inside Construction (IC) Terra Drone founder and CEO Toru Tokushige, who will also be presenting at the 2017 World of Drones Congress at the end of August, detailed what the company has to offer and why its chosen Australia as its Asia Pacific base.
IC: Tell us more about Terra Drone – what sets the company and its equipment apart?
Tokushige: Terra Drone offers a real-time 3D mapping system which integrates drones with LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) capabilities. Our technology enables us to offer tailored solutions for a variety of tasks. We can customise our services to meet various unique necessary requirements like landform types, budgets, data accuracy specifics, and project timelines. Our services cover a wide scope of industries, including mining, construction, forestry, environmental and agriculture. We have worked with more than 400 projects with government and private sectors in Japan, which include helping land surveying services following natural disruptions; for example, landslides and earthquake.
IC: Why pick Australia as your Asia Pacific base?
Tokushige: Geography wise, it is close to our headquarters in Japan. Australia is a massive country, where our sufficient service can potentially fit into the program of many different industries here. Moreover, we hope to have a market share in international companies. As a result, we will be able to introduce our Terra Drone service on a global platform.
Construction and traditional land surveying industries [in Australia and Japan] are also similar, as well as digitalisation work flow.
IC: What do you think are the opportunities that come with the use of UAVs for your company and for industry?
Tokushige: There are endless opportunities for UAVs in Australian construction that have yet to be exploited. Currently, many Australian industries continue to use traditional methods which are comfortable and familiar to them, but they are yet to be exposed to the potential that UAVs have of improving their business, and becoming technologically advanced.
UAVs will be able to replace human pilots as users can configure a fixed flight plan. In this way, construction companies would not need to spend unnecessary amounts of money for hiring a helicopter or airplane to do their surveying.
Surveying by people is also dependent on weather conditions and whether the land is safe for people to go onto. UAVs would not have this issue as our LiDAR laser technology takes vegetation into consideration and is even more accurate with an accuracy of within 5cm, than these conventional methods where it is easily susceptible to human error. This also promotes safety as people would not have to pass through dangerous areas.
Project management also becomes easier with our app then enables users to view the data directly from their phone or iPad. It also is 75% faster than conventional methods as the data is processed and sent to the application.
IC: Are there any hurdles that are standing in the way of UAV adoption?
Tokushige: As with any kind of change, there will be hurdles. Many people are already comfortable with the systems that have been well performing and good enough for their business, as a result it’s making them feel like new technology is redundant. It is difficult to develop trust in this promising technology. Initially, new technology can seem overly complicated. But we are simply trying to offer effective surveying system.
IC: Ultimately, why should the sector employ UAVs?
Tokushige: UAVs should be employed as wages are increasing and there is a labour shortage occurring at the same time. UAVs will need fewer people to maintain surveying operations in comparison to conventional methods, as well as being more time and cost efficient. Because of the efficiency of UAVs, they will help move along the process of construction, and therefore much needed infrastructure can be built. In this way, we will be able to keep up with the population increase.
The 2017 World of Drones Congress will be held at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre from August 31 to September 2. More here.