Heliguy selling Elistair tethered-drone solutions

UPDATE (June 11, 2020): Elistair unveils Safe-T 2 tethered drone solution, which has a range of key features, including a Patented Safety Brake to prevent any possibility of fly away of your tethered drone.

Heliguy is now selling Elistair's state-of-the-art tethering systems - which can keep drones airborne 24/7.   

Because of the extra-long flight time, these sophisticated pieces of kit are ideal for persistent intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and high-bandwidth communications.

The tethered drone was a great asset for police officers and helped to reduce traffic congestion by 45 minutes. Thanks to this system, we were able to trace a person wanted for public drunkenness

Alexandre Auger, CEO of Adéole

These tethering drone solutions - perfect for when endurance is key - are being used by major industrial companies and government agencies in more than 40 countries. They serve a range of applications, including:

Why use a tethering system?

Tethered drones trade lateral movement for increased endurance as they are physically and securely connected to a ground station by a micro-tether, essentially providing unlimited flight time. This is compared to the average 25-30 minutes of flight time of a conventional drone flying without tether.

The tether not only provides the physical security of keeping the UAV in place but also provides power and in some cases the ability to transfer secure data which, because it is not being transmitted by radio frequency, cannot be jammed.

With a high-speed data transfer, tethered UAVs are powerful tools for telecommunications,acting as airborne relays

A tethered solution has multiple benefits for a wide range of industry verticles. These benefits include:

• Persistent: Connected to the micro-tether providing power from the ground, drones are able to remain airborne for hours. This provides levels of situational awareness which were previously unobtainable.

• Cover wide areas: With operational heights of 50 to 100 meters, tethered UAVs can provide wide coverage of large events. 

• Secure: The micro-tether provides secure, unjammable communications immune to interference and enabling a safe, real-time, high-speed data transfer.

• Overt Deterrence: Tethered UAVs provide an overt surveillance deterrent which disrupts a criminal's freedom of movement and action.

• Functional: Robust and easily transportable, tethered systems are designed for the field. Quick to use and deploy, they are simple and effective solutions for persistent aerial surveillance.

• 4K Video Streaming: Secured 4K aerial video-streaming is made possible thanks to Elistair’s micro-tether. The tethered systems allow continuous and interference-free high-quality video broadcast.

• Flight Safety Assurance: In crowded entertainment events, public safety is essential for risk holders. Elistair tethered technologies ensure safe drone operations through a fully-controlled and physically-secure system.

What is available?

Two options are available. The new Safe-T 2 - which builds on the success of the original Safe-T - and the Ligh-T Tether 4.

Safe-T 2 Tether

Safe-T 2 is a smart tethered station for commercial drones.

The Safe-T 2 sets a new standard for tethered drone stations, with a 125m swappable micro-tether, unlimited secured power, and an IP54 weather rating.

Ligh-T Tether

Ligh-T V4 is a compact and rugged tethered drone solution for small UAVs.

Designed for the field, Ligh-T provides access to several hours of continuous flights for emergency event management.

Compatible with a range of DJI drones

The two tethering systems are compatible with a range of DJI drones, including the M200 series. This gives the operator many benefits. Not only can the tethering system ensure that the drone stays airborne for hours, but fixing additional payloads to the UAV helps to make missions even more effective.

For instance, integrating a Zenmuse XT2 thermal camera onto a tethered M210 or a Zenmuse Z30 high-capability camera onto a tethered M600 would offer a comprehensive solution - ideal for the likes of the emergency services or industrial operators.

Thermal cameras on tethered drones allow firefighters to track the fire and keep tabs on their teams to help ensure their safety

The tethering systems in more detail

1: Safe-T 2 - The all-new smart tethering station for drones

The Safe-T 2 sets a new standard for tethered drone solutions, offering real-time persistent observation capability with a range of compatible UAVs and payloads.

It is a powerful tool, enabling drone operators to widen their perspectives by bringing unlimited autonomy, safety and real-time high-resolution data transfer.

The Safe-T 2 is compatible with more than 50 drones, including DJI drones.

Safe-T 2 has a Patented Safety Brake to prevent any possibility of fly away of your tethered drone, and allows you to adapt the maximum tether length, depending on where you are operating.

When it comes to the military, tethered-drone systems allow troops to make clear and informed tactical decisions in the most demanding situations. Situational awareness, provided by real-time footage, can be decisive in the outcome of an engagement

The Safe-T 2 has a Dual Comms option, ensuring you maximise your performance and is critical for a quiet data transfer during missions. With the integration of Fiber Optic and BPL data links in parallel, the micro-tether ensures a data link redundancy for unmatched speed and security in data transfer.

The Safe-T 2 affords seamless integration into vehicles and fixed structures, thanks to its modular metallic strucuture, compact size, and fastening rails. The tether station is also easly manageable for a single operator to deploy.

Safe-T 2 also features an optional Development Toolkit for an efficient integration to your platform.

One of the key features of the Safe-T 2 is its 125m swappable micro-tether; the tether station's modular design allows for an easy, fast and clean swap of the micro-tether spool.

The Safe-T 2 also has an innovative winch system, meaning it can be reconfigured at will and allowing the operator to choose the best configuration for its mission.

The Safe-T 2 has been engineered to meet the demands of hostile operating conditions. Thanks to its IP54 rating, this field-proven solution has an increased resistance to dust and water, making it able to withstand difficult environments.

The Safe-T 2 also can give 2.8kw of unlimited power.

The Safe-T 4 is a follow-up to the renowned Safe-T tethered drone solution.

2: Ligh-T 4 - A compact tethered station for challenging environments

The Ligh-T 4 is a tethered drone station, offering extended possibilities to police forces and first responders.

Designed to be easily transportable and deployable on any type of terrain, Ligh-T 4 is compact and can be operational in seconds.

It builds on the success of the Ligh-T 3, which has proved to be a popular and reliable solution across a range of use-cases.

Ligh-T 4 is compatible with a wide range of drones thanks to its unique range of hot-swappable air modules. These DJI drones include the DJI Matrice 200 V2, the DJI M200 V1, the DJI Inspire 1, DJI Inspire 2, the DJI S900, and the DJI Matrice 100.

The Ligh-T 4 winch is powered with a compact engine for secured tether unwinding, and the mechanical handle means that the tethered system can be wound or unwound manually.

Operators of the Ligh-T 4 can take advantage of enhanced flight data management with the T-Monitor. The benefits are:

• Improved operational management through flight data recording;

• Understand equipment usage and view flight statistics through detailed flight data;

• Overview of the tethered station and onboard battery status to monitor drone performance and ensure the best operations possible.

Other key features of the Ligh-T 4 include:

• 1200w power

• 700m hovering altitude

• 10.5g/m tether weight

The Ligh-T 4 is a streamlined tethered drone station for streamlined operations. It is:

• Transportable: Carry it easily in your backpack or in your hand

• Deployable: Can be quickly set up

• Operable: Only needs one operator, who does not need any training

The Ligh-T 4 tethered drone station provides a manual winch, which is easy to use for fast and flexible deployments.

**Key benefits of winch:**

• Auto reel-out during deployment

• Fast reel-in for recovery, no power supply needed

• Easy maintenance and cleaning

• Enhanced compactness and sturdiness

Case study - Tethering system helps police

To increase security in the vicinity of a concert hall for singer Orelsan, French police connected a DJI M200 with a Zenmuse Z30 full HD camera to Elistair's Ligh-T tethering station.

Powered from the ground, the drone flight lasted several hours, compared to 25 minutes for a conventional drone, and helped secure the perimeter of the arena.

Connected to the ground by a micro-tether, the UAV flew over the zone before, during and after the concert without the interruption that comes with changing batteries.

Access, entrances, exits, roads, flows of people and vehicles were able to be monitored safely and effectively. Thanks to the tethered drone, security teams were able to have constant situational awareness of an area with a radius of 1.5km.

The objective of this mission was to monitor traffic conditions before and after Orelsan’s concert. We flew two hours 45 minutes before the concert and one hour after with Elistair’s system. This innovation allowed us to significantly increase our flight time! During our previous missions, we did not have this system and the pressure related to battery life was huge. We were positioned on a site between the concert hall and the car park. The flights were carried out at a maximum height of 50m, allowing all the traffic routes near the site to be monitored.

Alexandre Auger, CEO of Adéole

Directly displayed to the control room, the video surveillance images provided the police officers with a deep understanding of the situation and allowed them to take the quickest and most appropriate measures.

Alexandre Auger added: “Our objective was to assist the municipal police in relieving traffic congestion. The use of this tethered drone was a great asset for police officers and helped to reduce traffic congestion by 45 minutes. In addition, thanks to this system, we were able to trace a person wanted for public drunkenness."

For more information about the Elistair tethering systems, contact Heliguy by emailing info@heliguy.com or call 0191 296 1024.