Disinfectant-spraying drones to fight coronavirus in Texas stadiums

The Cotton Bowl stadium, located in Fair Park in Dallas, has hired Arvika Aerial Tech and R-Water to use disinfectant-spraying drones to fight the coronavirus and clean the stadium to help bring back fans and spectators.

Disinfectant-spraying drones to fight coronavirus in Texas stadiums

The Cotton Bowl is teaming up with these two companies to start cleaning the stadium using disinfectant-spraying drones. Paul Woessner, the vice president of Texas-based Arvika Aerial Tech, said his drones traditionally been used for agriculture, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for sanitized spaces have led the company to pivot and use the drones for disinfecting purposes.

“We have married together the latest technology with ‘precision-ag' drones and disinfectant,” Woessner said, according to Fox13 News. “We watched high schools cancel things this spring and it was just a natural step to see if we can take our business out of the cornfield and into the football stadium to make a difference.”

“With one pass, we can hit about four rows as opposed to a person going and having to do each one by themselves,” Woessner said, explaining how drones can perform the same work faster and more efficiently.

The $20,000-costing drones will be spraying R-Water as the disinfectant, in a partnership that started in the spring of 2020.

“Schools and sports, they weave our cultures together so when we can bring them back, we can bring America back,” R-Water founder Rayne Guest said. “Our product has a one minute contact time, unlike most, which have a 10 minute contact time, which means you have to let the product sit that long before it kills anything.”

Guest said that normally R-Water would be sprayed from backpacks, but, for the first time, the product will now be used in the drones.

“This is the first time that we are adding drone use to our arsenal, which is really exciting for us,” Guest said. “There will be other areas in a stadium, like the bathrooms and the food-service areas that people will use the product in spray bottles and pump sprayers.”

The Cotton Bowl stadium can house more than 92,000 people, the drone can disinfect the entire stadium in about four hours.

For the time being, the drones at the Cotton Bowl will be practicing, spraying only water as officials wait for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to approve the use of the disinfectant, a decision expected in the next 90 days.

DJI used drones to spray disinfectant in public spaces in China, claiming that drones can sanitize areas up to 50 times faster than humans could. Here are some other relevant News stories in which drones are used to clean stadiums.

• COVID-19: Disinfecting with drones at Chicagoland Park, Illinois
• Aeras Fog Company developed an electrostatic drone that disinfects stadiums in three hours
• Florida drone company pivots from cleaning to sanitizing drone services during pandemic

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Photo credit: Fox News