5×5 Technologies, a technology company focused on improving the accuracy and usability of data collected by commercial drones, announced today that the company will launch a UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) powered asset inspection service in Spring 2019, in partnership with Tokyo-based SoftBank Corp. SoftBank invested in 5×5 Technologies in an effort to improve the aging of social infrastructure and facilities in Japan.
“SoftBank is our ideal partner. The company has a long term vision for drone powered asset inspections that will allow 5×5 to accelerate development and deployment of innovation to ensure the long term conservation of critical infrastructure,” said Anne Zink, founder and CEO of 5×5 Technologies.
In Japan, social infrastructure, including bridges, harbors, dams, power plants and steel towers, is more than 50 years old. With the shortage of maintenance and inspection personnel due to declining birthrate and aging of population, strategic measures need to be put in place to manage and maintain equipment over long periods of time.
“IoT is a technical challenge and business opportunity for SoftBank today. We have taken several IoT initiatives including investment, network built, and solution development. 5×5 Technologies’ capability of 3D modeling and analytics is essential for our proposed conservation service to cope with the aging of the social critical infrastructure. SoftBank continues developing and promoting the drone solutions with 5×5,” said Junichi Miyakawa, representative director and CTO at SoftBank.
5×5 Technologies works with infrastructure owners to create their drone powered asset inspection strategy and analyzes the data collected by drones in a patent pending 3D environment via a SaaS application. Most of 5×5 Technologies’ current clients are in North America but the company will expand their ability to generate highly accurate 3D models from aerial photographs by drones into Japan. Comments? Email us.
November 19, 2018
