Dto a child, When it was a greedy curiosity of readings to project it in orbit, He fired of traveling on horseback of a pencil. Growing up, thanks to the novels of Isaac Asimov he got passionate about teleportation: “I have always dreamed of him … but a journey into space, who knows, maybe I could be able to do it”. Loredana Scaffa, Roman, sensed the potential of drones to the dawn Of a technological turning point destined to enter more and more pervasively in our lives: “In 2014, after taking the flight patent to pilot an ultralight, I saw the first rudimentary models of drones and I decided to put my interests together while the first regulation that regulated the remote -piloting aircraft systems” was approved “.
Graduated in statistics, after having worked for a long time in the world of information systems he decided to give way as a manager in an energy company that was about to be acquired by a Spanish company to found the Aerovisionschool of drones with operational headquarters at the gates of the capital and branches in Friuli, Tuscany, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily which today has about fifteen external collaborators: “At that time new professional figures were emerging, from the social media manager to the webmaster, and I thought that among the trades of the future there would also be the drone pilot”.
To motivate it was the belief that the device would become a work tool like the computer, “landed on everyone’s desk, each for its own business”, on condition of acquiring the ability and experience necessary to maneuver it.
Loredana Scaffa, 62, founder of Aerovision, school of drones on the outskirts of Rome.
Drones, a sophisticated control system
The first to contact his school were the topographers, aware of the advantages they could have obtained: “They immediately realized that the times for a photogrammetry on an area of some hectare would be reduced from three days to half day”. Then came the experts of theIngv-National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology To carry out reliefs in inaccessible and risky areas: “The drone is not a toy, but a very technological object” underlines Scaffa, “equipped with a control and control system, a device for the management of the aircraft, a sensor controlled remotely, GPS and information transmission system from the camera to the ground”.
A model used for the control of a photovoltaic system.
The applications are manifoldbut attributable to three macroareas: visual survey which thanks to a camera allows you to carry out surveillance or to create photos and videos for cinema or archaeological investigations; The withdrawal of air samples through the use of an electronic nose for environmental analyzes and the monitoring of smog microparticles. With the installation of a thermoque, however, they can be inspect photovoltaic fields or carry out checks on high voltage pylons Avoiding that the workers climb up in height: “It is a sector in constant evolution” reiterates Loredana Scaffa.
«I just ordered a kind of caliper from Canada that goes to take a portion of vegetation in the most remote ravines or in the escarpments where otherwise it would be impossible to arrive. In these ten years, the public administration has also approached us, albeit with a certain caution, from the technicians of the Revenue Agency for Aerofotogrammetria, to INAIL to detect the presence of asbestos and check the safety conditions for workers.
A drone flies a fire. There are many possible uses, from the reliefs in impervious areas to the measurement of air quality.
We have formed many professionals, from the police forces to the workers of cinema, from high school students to architects: a laser scanner mounted under the drone, for example, can be very useful for carrying out the relief of large buildings or in the checks under the bridges or viaducts of railways and highways “.
In the meantime, the logistics giants are testing the possibility of integrating the organizational model for the delivery of goods with a fleet of drones that in large urban areas is mainly on the transport by rubber: «Amazon is experimenting with the vehicle and the path, has reserved a space in vast while we are forming their students. He will create joints, sorting points, hubs, couriers … ».
The next frontier, which is already almost reality, provides for the use of artificial intelligence installed on board able to perform the analyzes directly or to complete certain operations: “We will have drones left near an industrial system capable of performing controls controlled remotely: for example, if the alarm sounds, the aircraft takes off and goes to check what is happening at the point of which the report has started”.
A unique space for drones and planes
In the future not too far away, as much as worthy of a science fiction saga, the skies will be populated by thousands of flying objects For which a coordinated slot assignment system must be found in order to avoid collisions: «You are working on U-Space, a single space for drones and airplanes because with the thousands of aircraft in circulation in Italy the situation is no longer manageable from the control tower: it must be all automated and the infrastructures are needed, a vertiori network (airport for vessels and vertical landscape, editor’s note). The next step will be the development of a platform that will allow you to fly all together in the same space And in safety conditions each at their altitude by consulting aerial maps thanks to which each pilot should know if at a date it can be flying now ».
In the face of the scenarios that open, shelter is excited by thinking about the road that traveled “from the first artificial intelligence notebook of 1984” when it was unthinkable that 40 years later it would come to talk about the generative: “At the beginning of my career I dealt with health and I was in the working group that made the program for the single Cup-center of booking in Bologna. It was 1995 and the national health card was assumed: today we finally have the file ». Among his unrealized desires there is still the utopia of traveling in spacetime, but it would be enough for her to leave the terrestrial orbit to observe our planet from another perspective: a little Verne, a little small prince.
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