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| It's fair to be skeptical, but I do know a few of the people that have been working directly on this project, so I'll vouch for them.
Ceres is a newer company, can't say how long they've existed exactly, but I can tell you that one of the co-owners (whom I think is also the president) is the former president of Pegasus Robotics. Black Betty is their first drone, but it's far from the first drone the individuals and partners have been apart of. (Ex. Pegasus is the biggest XAG distributor)
Currently Raptor Dynamics (formerly HSE-UAV) is the first distributor. They are bringing more on, but as of right now Raptor is the only one, and they have dealers across the country. They've been dealing and working with drones for awhile now. They were DJI dealers for awhile before the ban at customs on DJI drones. They still sell XAG (they actually were the first ones to bring XAG to the US) and Vector drones.
Ceres is working with other American companies on aspects of this drone too. ImageTek is the who they are partnering with for the manufacturing, and they are located in Springfield, VT. They just opened up a new 40acre manufacturing facility for these drones. Theres another company doing the software side of things, but I can't remember their name.
The drone itself is built off of an existing platform designed by Vector, who made the HD580 (which is one of the best drones currently on the market imo.) Ceres licensed the design and is making their own changes to make it better suited for the US. They are designing this thing to be able to spray the full 40 gals at 2gpa, which is something that the T100 cant do under normal conditions.
Ceres is also working with Steve Li, from the University of Auburn, to conduct real life testing with a group of unbiased "Super Users" to collect as much real life feedback as possible, both good and bad.
My confidence is high. I think this drone will beat the snot out of anything on the market for large production acres, and I don't think it's gonna even be close. It may have some growing pains initially (it's a tough ask to be perfect on release for any drone), but they'll do their best to make it as smooth and possible. | |
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Ceres website
