After the public announcement of heliguy™ and Venari's collaborative drone support vehicle at the Emergency Services Show at The NEC in Birmingham, we’ve been speaking to both companies to get more details on this custom Ford Ranger and take a look at some of the technology on board.

heliguy™ is an industry-leading UK drone specialist who were established in 2008. Growing over time and now with global logistics, they supply drone hardware and support drone programmes around the world, have an in-house drone training department delivering industry-specific and UK CAA-approved courses, and have a specialist counter-UAS division.

The dedicated drone support vehicle; due to it being completely bespoke and built for purpose, houses a host of great features. It’s ‘ready-to-fly drone mechanism’ allows various models of drone such as the DJI M30 Series or M300 RTK – to be safely transported whilst fully assembled and prepped for rapid deployment. The built-in DJI Aeroscope RF drone detection unit identifies UAV communication links; gathering information such as flight status, paths, and other information in real-time. Combined with the on board real-time weather station, keeping the pilots fully informed of the conditions and local surroundings.

“Every minute detail has been considered for the unique and varied situations where UAS are deployed, including human factors, risk management and flight procedures”

| heliguy™

To the rear of the vehicle, housed in the custom canopy is the command and control station. This features a 43” QLED screen with anti-reflection technology (Samsung QN90B Neo QLED 4K HDR Smart TV) with integrated Command Unit interface and drone live feed. Just above that, lives the Davis Vantage Pro 2 industrial-grade weather station which can measure inside & out temperature and humidity (particularly important for the drones and batteries), dew point, wind speed & direction, wind hill / heat index, barometric pressure and more.

There is also a 3 Litre Transvend Water Heater on pull-out rails and other onboard welfare facilities for keeping staff safety and morale high.

Wall mounted and enclosed within the canopy is Victron Enegry’s MultiPlus Inverter/Charger (12 volt / 2000VA 1600W / 80 amp). This is a smart power management system allowing all the electronics to be powered from A/C mains whilst simultaneously charging onboard batteries. With an automatic ‘flick of a switch’ or disconnecting from the mains, the system will swap to using stored energy from the onboard batteries to supply power with no interruption.

All of the internal and external working area has both white as well as red led lights to help see in all situations - red light being proven to have a lesser effect on night sight adjustment. The vehicle can also go into a black-out mode for covert operations. Both the drone transport tray and command and control station are extendable and can pull out to create extra work space.