Baltimore’s MissionGO has won a $50 million contract — its largest yet — to use unmanned aircraft to help a California utility company prevent wildfires.
MissionGo President Chris Corgnati said the partnership with Southern California Edison is spurred by California state mandates requiring more frequent electric infrastructure inspections after a slew of devastating fires. MissionGO's aircraft will be used to provide a faster, safer alternative to a human climbing a pole to inspect power lines.
“They cannot provide the level of inspection and safety that they need to to prevent wildfires and keep the grid up and operating without these services,” Corgnati said. “It’s not just that the technology is there, it's that the services are needed.”
MissionGO focuses on package delivery, infrastructure inspections, and training people on how to fly unmanned vehicles. The company also assembles its own aircraft out of Baltimore. MissionGo was co-founded by Scott Plank, a local businessman and brother to Under Armour founder Kevin Plank, who currently serves as executive chairman; Dr. Joseph Scalea, who was formerly a multi-organ transplant surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center but is no longer involved with the company; and Tony Pucciarella, who currently sits on the MissionGo board and is also the founder of AlarisPro, an unmanned systems company.
The new contract calls on the company to look at 120,000 poles, over six times the number of poles MissionGO inspected in the past three years working with California Edison. The contract includes the possibility of two one-year extensions. The contract is shared with another company whose name was not disclosed. MissionGO previously worked with California Edison on smaller one-year contracts worth $1 million to $2 million.
“We're able to use an autonomous, electric aircraft to collect data that previously would have taken a 4,000-pound helicopter with two pilots,” Plank, a developer and former executive at Under Armour, said.
Plank also believes that maintaining electric infrastructure is a key area of growth for MissionGO as the power grids for cities and states expand with the growing popularity of electric vehicles.
The company plans to do real-time analysis of the images an aircraft takes while looking at a power line, instead of doing post-mission processing, to get repair crews onsite as soon as possible, Corgnati said.
The growth of MissionGO is restricted by government regulations around unmanned vehicles. Civilian vehicles are only allowed to operate within the line of sight of an operator. If those regulations change, MissionGO would be able to take longer flights, of around 12-14 miles, massively expanding business opportunities, Corgnati said. The company has also been working on plans to deliver organs to hospitals.
Plank believes that it's the unmanned aircraft industry's responsibility to show the public, through demos and other tools, that unmanned vehicles are a reliable way to provide critical services.
“The general public has to get very comfortable that these aircraft are safe and reliable flying over their heads,” Plank said.
Outside of MissonGO's contract, the unmanned aircraft industry in Maryland has shown other signs of growth.
Norwegian company Nordic Unmanned is planning to launch a 30,000-40,000 square foot North American headquarters. In the public sector, Naval Air Station Patuxent River is a hub for military development of unmanned vehicles, while the University of Maryland operates an unmanned vehicle research and test facility in St. Mary’s county.
This article has been updated to correct the titles of Scott Plank, Dr. Joseph Scalea and Tony Pucciarella.
