Anticollision tech upgraded

Casia X is an “evolution” of the Casia 360 system announced in 2020. The new iteration incorporates several improvements, including a 7-percent increase in probability of detection and a twelvefold reduction in false detections over the course of nearly 16,000 real-world manned aircraft encounter flight tests, the company noted in a press release. Reliability improvements and a new hardware architecture that supports up to six cameras increase the system’s flexibility to be adapted to a wide range of unmanned aircraft.

“The response to Casia X has been phenomenal, and we are thrilled to deliver the product into our customers’ hands,” Iris Automation Vice President of Product Jason Hardy-Smith said, in the news release. “We’ve gained significant feedback and experience since we first announced our 360 degree capability, which has been instrumental in shaping its capabilities for this major global market.”

Iris named unmanned industrial inspection firm AviSight as one of the Casia X beta testers, using the system to conduct field tests of long, linear operations. AviSight Director of Operations William O’Donnell praised Casia X in the news release:

“Our customers understand that unmanned missions can dramatically enhance efficiencies, reduce costs and improve the overall safety of their infrastructure maintenance and environmental monitoring programs. Technologies like Casia provide us with additional layers of safety, helping us advance toward beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations, in close collaboration with federal regulators invested in safe airspace integration. We are excited to be working with the Iris Automation team.”

Casia X is being tested by multiple national aviation authorities, including the FAA Beyond program, which seeks to validate technologies and find solutions to the remaining challenges posed by unmanned BVLOS operations. The FAA program is a continuation of the UAS Integration Pilot Program, and is focused on developing rules that will allow routine BVLOS operations without a waiver. Iris Automation is working with four of the eight participating entities, including the city of Reno, Nevada; the Kansas Department of Transportation, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Choctaw Nation.