Heerbrugg, Switzerland
Burkhard Boeckem’s new Leica BLK2FLY is the world’s first fully integrated LiDAR unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), underscoring the company’s commitment to being the global leader in digital reality solutions, combining sensors, software, and autonomous technologies to empower an autonomous future.
The Leica BLK2FLY is an autonomous flying laser scanner featuring advanced obstacle avoidance for easy UAV scanning.
It is designed for anyone to easily and quickly capture the exterior features and dimensions of buildings, structures, and other environments that would otherwise be inaccessible or require a traditional drone or UAV with a LiDAR or photogrammetry payload.
To operate it, a user makes a few simple taps on a tablet and the BLK2FLY captures an object’s complete dimensions autonomously from the air.
While traditional UAVs can provide airborne reality capture and photogrammetry, they often take a top-down scanning perspective, resulting in scans with shadows, incomplete textures, or missing details.
They also aren’t able to easily accommodate projects that vary in size and scope and variables including vegetation, cables and pipes, and reflective materials that also impact scan quality.
The BLK2FLY solves these challenges by capturing building exteriors, structures, and environments to create 3D point clouds while flying.
Built on SLAM technology, the BLK2FLY features: advanced obstacle avoidance for easy UAV scanning; advanced flight safety technology; fully integrated sensors; fast, autonomous laser scanning; and portable transportation, with fast in-field set-up time.
The BLK2FLY is operated through a companion app on a tablet to allow for fast, easy scanning and the BLK2FLY does not require special training other than a UAV pilot’s license.
The BLK2FLY introduces the next generation of flight safety with advanced autonomous obstacle avoidance.
SLAM technology and sensor fusion of LiDAR, radar, cameras, and GNSS ensures optimal and safe flight paths.
The resulting colorized 3D point clouds are instrumental to building information modelling (BIM) processes, including documenting site conditions.
The resulting scans provide all the necessary details and measurements.
With simple operation on a tablet, users can quickly and easily scan structures and environments accurately and entirely from the air.
The airborne scanning provides value across multiple industries in need of accurate data of inaccessible or hard-to-reach areas (e.g., façade projections, rooftops), ensuring complete capture of a structure’s exterior features and dimensions.
The BLK2FLY enables the user to remain in a safe location while the BLK2FLY scans inaccessible areas.
The BLK2FLY also saves companies time and resources previously allocated to trying to accurately capture hard-to-reach or dangerous areas.
These cost savings span across staffing, investments in alternative technologies, and potential insurance and safety risks.
Furthermore, the product’s ability to precisely capture an area ensures return trips are not required while also creating digital documentation of a space for future reference.
Project: Leica BLK2FLY
Designers: Leica Geosystems AG
Lead Designer: Burkhard Boeckem
Manufacturer: Leica Geosystems AG – Part of Hexagon
