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Property Drone Consortium Announces Members, R&D Plans

UAO Staff
Posted by UAO Staff
on April 12, 2016 No Comments

The Property Drone Consortium (PDC), a collaboration comprising insurance carriers, construction industry stakeholders and supporting enterprises, has announced its roster of charter members.

The consortium works together to promote research and development (R&D) and the establishment of regulations, standards and specifications for the use of drones across the insurance and construction industries.

The charter members include Allstate Corp., American Family Insurance, Auto-Owners Insurance, EagleView Technologies Inc. (which led the formation of the PDC in late 2014), Erie Insurance and Pilot Catastrophe Services.

The consortium has also added the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) as a technology advisor, the National Roofing Contractors Association as an honorary member, and the Rochester Institute of Technology as a technology member.

“The multi-faceted collaboration to enhance commercial use of unmanned aerial systems is exciting. The PDC expects to develop technology enabling safe operations and inspections that will benefit its members and members’ customers,” says Gary Sullivan, chairman of the PDC.

Within the past year, the PDC says it has secured a number of Federal Aviation Administration regulatory approvals for UAS operations for aerial data collection, including the inspection of properties for the insurance and construction industries.

In addition, the PDC is working closely with the IBHS on research that focuses on the collection and processing of intelligent images using drone platforms and their subsequent assessment for property exteriors – specifically, roof-damage detection.

“The PDC is also focusing on research into ongoing safety initiatives for collision avoidance, visual line of sight and automated flight planning, as well as looking into how to integrate resulting data from UAS inspections into existing workflows,” adds Charles Mondello, president of the PDC.

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