Oulimata Dia, project manager for UAS at France's SNCF railroad, said the operation currently owns 10 unmanned aircraft, a mixture of fixed-wing UAS and rotorcraft, which it uses primarily for bridge inspection and maintenance work. SNCF also designed its own beyond-line-of-sight UAS, working with Toulouse-based Delair-Tech. That vehicle, the DT26X, was on display at Delair-Tech's booth at the show. It has a range of 150 kilometers (93 miles), an endurance of 2.5 hours and weighs 14 kilograms (31 pounds). The company markets several service packages based around the DT26X, including for surveillance and antipoaching, agriculture and vegetation analysis, and for mapping and surveying. In the future, SNCF would like to use unmanned aircraft for vegetation control, keeping errant trees and other growth off the rail lines.
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