When Hector Sue was learning to fly a helicopter in college, he recounted some “rude experiences” trying to navigate at night.
Heart-stopping flights led to research into unmanned aircraft systems while earning a doctorate in aerospace engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then, it formed Rotor Technologies in 2021 to develop unmanned helicopters.
Rotter has built two autonomous sprayhawks and aims to produce as many as 20 for the market next year. The company is also developing helicopters that will transport supplies to disaster areas and offshore oil rigs. Helicopters can also be used to fight forest fires.
For now, Rutter is focusing on the agriculture sector, which has embraced automation with drones but sees unmanned helicopters as a better way to spray large areas with pesticides and fertilizers.
On Wednesday, Rotter plans to conduct a public flight test with his Sprayhawk at the Agricultural Aviation Trade Show in Texas.
“People will call us and say, ‘Hey, I want to use this for crop dusting, do I?’ We’ll say, well, maybe,” Sue said, adding that he’s received enough calls to realize it’s a huge untapped market. Associated Press reporters were the first people outside the company to witness a test flight of the Sprayhawk. It would hover, fly forward and spray the tarmac before landing.
Rotor’s nearly $1 million Sprayhawk helicopter is a Robinson R44, but the four seats have been replaced with flight computers and a communications system that allows it to be operated remotely. It has five cameras as well as laser sensing technology and a radar altimeter that provides more accurate terrain readings along with GPS and motion sensors.
At the company’s hangar in Nashua, New Hampshire, Xu said the technology means better visibility of the area at night.
A major reason for automation in agricultural aviation is safety.
Because crop dusters fly at speeds of about 150 miles per hour and only 10 feet off the ground, dozens of accidents occur each year when planes collide with power lines, cell towers and other aircraft. Old, poorly maintained aircraft and pilot fatigue contribute to accidents.
A 2014 report by the National Transportation Safety Board found that between 2001 and 2010, there were more than 800 agricultural operation accidents, 81 of which were fatal. A separate report by the National Agricultural Aviation Association found about 640 accidents involving 109 fatalities from 2014 to this month.
“It’s a very dangerous occupation and there are many deaths every year,” said Dean Martin, a research engineer with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service. “They make all their money in those short few months so sometimes that can mean they fly 10 to 12 hours a day or more.”
Occupational hazards include exposure to chemicals.
In recent years, safety concerns and cheap prices have led to a proliferation of drones flying over farmers’ fields, Martin said, adding that about 10,000 will be sold this year alone.
But the size of drones and their limited battery power mean they can cover only a fraction of the range of planes and helicopters. This is providing an opening for major drone manufacturers such as Rotor and another company, Paika.
California-based Paika announced in August that it had sold its first autonomous electric crop protection aircraft to a customer in the United States. Pyka’s Pelican Spray, a fixed-wing aircraft, received FAA approval to fly commercially for crop protection last year. The company also sold its Pelican spray doll for use in Honduras and to Brazilian company SLC Agrícola.
Lucas Koch, chief technology officer of Heinen Brothers Agra Services, the company that bought Pelican Spray in August, called the drones part of a coming “revolution” that will save farmers money and improve safety. will
The Kansas-based company operates out of airports from Texas to Illinois. Koch didn’t envision an unmanned aircraft that would replace dozens of the company’s pilots, but rather take on the most dangerous jobs.
“The biggest draw is getting the pilot out of the airplane in the most dangerous situations,” Koch said. “There are still fields that are surrounded by trees on all the borders, or you have big, big power lines or other just hazards, wind turbines, things like that. It can be difficult to fly around.”
But Koch acknowledges that autonomous aviation systems could bring new threats to an already chaotic atmosphere — though that’s a concern in rural areas with little open space and fewer people.
“Putting more unmanned systems in the air could introduce new risks to our existing pilots and make their lives more dangerous,” he said. “If you’ve got this full-sized helicopter flying out of line of sight, what’s its reaction when it sees you? What’s it going to do? … That’s a big question mark, Which we take very seriously.
Companies like Rotter have added built-ins for emergencies in case something goes wrong — its helicopter has a half-dozen communication systems and, currently, a remote pilot in control.
If the ground team loses contact with the helicopter, the rotor has a system that Xu calls a big, red button that ensures the engine shuts down and the helicopter makes a controlled landing. could “That means we’ll never have an airplane flight ceremony,” he said.
The safety measures will help the company meet expectations for FAA regulatory approval to fly its helicopters commercially. Once they have that, the challenge, as Xu sees it, will be to meet demand in the United States but also in Brazil, which has a larger agricultural market but a more relaxed regulatory environment. .
“I think 2025 will be production hell as Elon Musk says,” Xu said. “It’s kind of the difference between building a couple to mass-producing tens and hundreds … It’s not just like Rolls-Royces anymore. You want to stamp them like you would an automobile.
