Fairfleet brings drone pilots together with those who Aerial images including smart data analysis need. A wide variety of industries, including real estate, insurance, energy, and agriculture, use the Munich startup's services for damage assessment, inspection, and monitoring. The company, founded in 2016 by Florian Waubke, Marco Kreuzer, Dario Manns, and Alexander Engelfried, has now signed a four-year framework agreement with the EU Commission for aerial surveys of disaster areas. As part of the collaboration, Fairfleet will create high-resolution maps for the Copernicus Service for Disaster and Crisis Management Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) of the European Commission's Joint Research Center. Copernicus is an EU program for the development of European information services based on satellite-based Earth observation and in-situ (ground) data.
The Copernicus Emergency Management Service is intended to provide information for emergency management relating to various types of disasters, including meteorological and geophysical hazards, deliberate and accidental man-made disasters and other humanitarian disasters, as well as for prevention, preparedness, response and recovery measures.
Unmanned aerial photography as alternative sources for satellite images
Fairfleet Within the Copernicus program, unmanned aerial photography will provide an alternative source of satellite imagery in emergency situations or for real-time monitoring of events such as earthquakes or urban floods, when current satellite imagery is unavailable or the resolution of satellite images is insufficient. These collected drone images will serve the Copernicus Emergency Management Service as a complement to satellite sources for humanitarian assistance and civil protection.
"Drones offer significant advantages due to their greater operational flexibility, potentially better timeliness, and more advanced technical capabilities, particularly in situations requiring detailed mapping. In this area, drones often offer the best possible performance in terms of spatial and spectral resolution,"
says Peter Spruyt, project manager of the Joint Research Center of the European Commission, about the planned collaboration.
Helpful data for EU citizens
And Alexander Engelfried, co-founder and managing director of Fairfleet, adds:
"Fairfleet clearly excelled in meeting the critical requirements of creating and maintaining a European drone operator network, as well as providing very fast processing and data transmission. We are proud to now be part of the Copernicus family and to be able to provide useful data to European authorities and, ultimately, to citizens."
