(upbeat synth music)
-: Drone Amplified is a start up that came out
of the University of Nebraska research lab.
I co-direct the NIMBUS Lab.
And Drone Amplified is focused on developing
a aerial ignition payload for drone systems.
So, basically this allows us
to, from the air, start prescribed fires
and also back burners for wildfires.
So what we do here at Drone Amplified
is we've developed a drone and
the associated payload we call IGNIS,
that can start these back burns with the drone,
that's much safer and much more successful and reliable.
So the system we've been developing to save lives
by moving the firefighters out
of the aircraft and moving them outside
of the danger posed by the fire.
So our customers range from the U.S. Forest Service
to private contractors who are doing burns
for local land owners.
And, you know we manufacture these systems,
both parts are built in-house,
we also then contract out to other companies and link in
other places in the United States to build parts for us
that we then assemble locally here in Nebraska.
So we started working on this concept probably
four or five years ago in the NIMBUS lab at UNL
and the first system we had could drop
four or five of these ignition spheres.
Now we're up to a system that can carry and drop
four or five hundred of these ignition spheres.
And over the years, this started in the research lab,
really proving the concept, testing, you know,
can this even be done,
as nobody else been able to do this.
So the research we did in the lab was really critical
to prove the concept and develop
some of the core safety systems
and the kind of technology to make this possible.
This is now, we then transitioned it into a company,
so we started Drone Amplified,
myself and a former faculty member and some former students,
and basically we've now taken it and really done
the last hard part of making it
a really robust and easy-to-use system
that now firefighters around the country are purchasing.
Now that we've actually commercialized the system
we're actually seeing people using it on a daily basis,
not only saving costs and helping with land management,
but we're actually saving lives
by getting people out of harm's way.
(drone propellers whir)