The team at CyPhy Works recently launched Aria Insights, a company that will focus on combining artificial intelligence (AI) with drone technology to offer a solution that both collects and analyzes data.

“After 10 years of innovating and redefining drone technology, the team at CyPhy saw the limitations facing the industry—namely the complications and risks of retrieving and analyzing data,” Aria Insights CEO Lance Vanden Brook said, according to a press release. “A number of our partners were collecting and housing massive amounts of information with our drones, but there was no service in the industry to quickly and efficiently turn that data into actionable insights. Moving beyond just a hardware provider, Aria is now a full-service solution that not only meets customers’ aerial needs, but also processes analytics that enable insightful decision making.”

The tethered drone will fly autonomously and have the ability to detect activities or facilities of interest as well as adapt to different environments, Chief Technology Officer Laura Major said during a phone interview. The unmanned aircraft system (UAS) will send alerts to users when new information is collected and connect all of the data to a digital 3-D map. With this solution, users can safely focus on the data being gathered; they won’t have to spend time capturing and watching video.

“Ultimately, customers and users are really interested in performing a task. Drones are a mechanism used to gather data for that task,” Major said. “AI provides an opportunity to go through the massive amounts of data drones are capable of collecting in areas people can’t get to and transform that data into key actionable insights. AI allows drones to be transformed into intelligent teammates.”

The drone can be used for a variety of applications, including security, disaster response, fire response and in oil tanker and pipeline maintenance. Systems from Aria Insights will be used for security during the Boston Marathon, Major said, flying along the route and feeding data to the emergency response center where personnel can monitor crowd control and look for anything that seems out of place.

“Being able to process that data in the field or at the edge is really important because users are doing tasks in the moment,” Major said. “So whether it’s emergency response trying to make quick decisions or gathering data for disaster assessment, these tasks require actionable information as quickly as possible.”

CyPhy’s flagship product, the Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications platform (PARC), will still be available from Aria Insights. The company also plans to launch a new product later this year.