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CAT helps birds avoid turbine collision

4C Offshore | Lewis Holdsworth
By: Lewis Holdsworth 04/03/2015 HiDef Aerial Surveying
Collision avoidenceIn September 2014 the partners received $1.1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to further develop HiDef’s Collision Avoidance Technology which seeks to understand how birds and bats avoid wind turbines.

HiDef Aerial Surveying (HiDef) confirmed they have completed a 7 year licensing deal with Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) of Maine, USA, for exclusive rights to manufacture and sell HiDef’s Collision Avoidance Technology in the USA.

The technology uses two extreme high-definition cameras that are offset to create a three dimensional view of a wind turbine, the horizon, and an area surrounding the turbine. In addition to daytime operations, the cameras use the latest near-infrared technology that will allow the detection of animal movements at night as well as during the day.

In the last 18 months HiDef have licensed their aerial survey technology to third party providers on an exclusive territory basis as the business is navigated back towards its core competency of technology development.

HiDef Director, David Baillie said “We are pleased to have completed the agreement with BRI, it is the first deal we’ve done for our Collision Avoidance Technology. Unlike licenses for our Aerial Survey Technology BRI will be producing units for the US market, logistics and import duties would have made a real difference to the market cost of the technology if supplied via the UK, so we needed to adopt a pragmatic approach”.

Managing Director, Mark Robinson added “We have been working hard to return the business to its core competency of developing first to market propositions. More and more of our income will be derived from licensing agreements, across a growing technology portfolio. HiDef expect to complete 3 further agreements over the coming six months”.

Wing Goodale, Deputy Director of BRI added “Our organisations collaborated for three years delivering digital aerial surveys to the US Department of Energy. When we first heard about this new technology we couldn’t wait to get involved. We expect to deploy units at terrestrial windfarms then target the offshore market as construction begins”.

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