Airtonomy is the Swiss army knife to drone-based asset management. Since its founding in 2018, the Grand Forks based startup has made efforts to modernize outdated approaches to asset management in the energy, agriculture, and public safety fields. Airtonomy has worked to solve this problem by combing drone technology and artifiticial intelligence making outdated processes safer and more efficient.
In April of 2019, Microsoft Corp. awarded Airtonomy, along with partner University of North Dakota, with a $100,000 TechSpark grant. This seed money then unlocked an additional $570,000 from local investors which helped propel the company forward.
“The Airtonomy solution offers tremendous cost savings for customers with minimal training involved,”
Josh Riedy, Founder and CEO of Airtonomy
Airtonomy was awarded North Dakota’s first Microsoft AI for Earth grant and a Research ND grant in March of 2020. This grant was awarded to “develop monitoring protocols of bird and bat mortalities at wind energy sites through the use of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)”, according to UND Today.
In the UND Today article, UND Associate Professor, Susan Ellis-Felege, explains that current environmental survey costs are extremely high. The current method of assessment requires a person to walk hundreds of miles a month at a wind farm in order to locate, identify and collect carcasses to record mortalities and remove them to minimize vulnerability of scavengers such as eagles. Ellise-Felge also explains that the use of UAS technology to conduct surveys could save a lot of time and money. It could also lead to improved pre-construction assessments of wind energy sites and better monitoring after construction is complete.
Airtonomy Applies to More than Wildlife Management
It is clear that Airtonomy is making great headway in the wildlife assessment space. They are also developing solutions for asset inspection of wind turbines, electrical transmissions, distribution lines and energy pipelines.
“The Airtonomy solution offers tremendous cost savings for customers with minimal training involved,” said Josh Riedy, Founder and CEO of Airtonomy, in an interview with UND Today. “As the world depends more heavily on wind and other sources of renewable energy, we’re prepared to improve operational efficiency and safety conditions for our customers, while simultaneously lessening the impact on wildlife mortality.”
Josh studied at the University of South Dakota where he graduated with an Ed.D. in higher education in 2007. Following college, Josh spent nine years working for the University of North Dakota. While at UND, he wore many different hats such as Associate Vice-President for Outreach Services, Dean of Outreach Programs, Chief Information Officer, Vice Provost and Chief Strategy Officer. Most recently, Josh spent two years as the Chief Operating Officer of EdgeData, a computer software company.
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