Nearly two years after Swift UAS teams flew the first unmanned vehicle over a densely populated area, the drone services leader is making history in Kobe City again. Teams from Swift Tactical Systems, in partnership with its Japanese counterpart, Swift-Xi, both subsidiaries of Swift Engineering, completed a multiphase study, enabling government officials to make critical decisions regarding the ongoing safety of its citizens. The UAS teams flew numerous missions gathering intelligence, conducting photogrammetry and live video surveys, studying archival data and providing extensive analysis to officials who are monitoring threats that destructive wildlife and landslides could have on the region. The joint American and Japanese teams flew unmanned Swift air vehicle systems integrated with live-streaming videos, georeferenced orthomosaic, and NDVI image capturing capabilities. The operations and delivery teams demonstrated much higher precision measurements, and outcomes using drone derived Digital Elevation Modeling (DEM) versus traditionally generated LIDAR modeling.
“Once again, Swift’s combined military operations expertise and advanced UAS technology coupled with our industry-leading data gathering and reporting have made us a clear leader in the space. We’ve demonstrated our ability to deliver real-time data with much higher accuracy to those responsible for protecting the health and welfare of the public,” says Alex Echeverria, Vice President of Swift Tactical Systems.
While this mission is the culmination of a multi-year contract with Kobe City, this is not the first time Swift has provided potentially life-saving reporting to the government. Swift teams have been tracking numerous environmental changes throughout Japan, including, landslide monitoring, seawall shifts, algae blooms, and invasive species. Also, Swift Tactical Systems and Swift-Xi recently completed search and rescue and animal identification missions as part of a contract with Okayama Prefecture in Japan. Further proving the Swift team’s outstanding capabilities, covering a 550-acre densely forested area and finding all of their targets in less than 35-minutes.
“Japan’s government officials have been laser-focused on ensuring the safety and security of its citizens and the economy. Our innovation teams have been working tirelessly to provide new insights and reporting to help them make better, more informed decisions. If the intelligence our teams provide can potentially save one life, then our 20 plus years of intense research, development, and investment in this space has been well worth it,” says Rick Heise, President, and CEO of Swift Engineering.
