The systems around the aircraft.
An airframe on its own is a capability that needs a person standing next to it. The platform is what turns that into coverage: ground infrastructure that launches and recovers without an operator, an enterprise layer that manages the fleet and the data it produces, and an engineering practice that turns a mission requirement into a production variant.
Quad-Dock™
A weatherised dock that charges the aircraft and launches it again without a person present. Quad-Dock turns a piloted asset into persistent, scheduled BVLOS coverage of a fixed site.
A piloted aircraft covers a site only when somebody is there to fly it. Quad-Dock removes that constraint. The aircraft lives on the dock, launches to a schedule or to a trigger, flies the route beyond visual line of sight, returns, recharges and waits for the next window. Coverage stops being an event that has to be arranged and becomes a service level that runs on its own.
- Autonomous charging and turnaround
- BVLOS autonomous mission execution
- Persistent coverage of fixed sites
- Trademark of ShadowVu Ltd
- 01
- Aircraft docked, charged and ready, no operator on site
- 02
- Launch on a schedule, on a trigger, or on demand
- 03
- Autonomous BVLOS route flown on RTK navigation
- 04
- Live video and telemetry into Everest as the sortie runs
- 05
- Autonomous return, capture and recharge
- 06
- Ready for the next window without an intervention
Quad-Dock™ is a trademark of ShadowVu Ltd. Patent filed and pending.
ShadowVu® Everest
The layer above the fleet. Everest handles deployment, management and control of aircraft at enterprise scale, with live viewing, data sharing and collaborative operations in one place.
One aircraft needs a pilot. A hundred aircraft across a dozen sites need a platform. Everest is the enterprise layer that holds the fleet: it commissions aircraft and docks, schedules and controls what they do, streams what they see, and routes the resulting data to the people and systems entitled to it. It is sold as seats, so the cost of the operation scales with the operation rather than with the hardware.
- Fleet deployment, management and control
- Live viewing and telemetry
- Data sharing and collaborative use
- Subscription seats, scales with the fleet
- Deployment
- Commission aircraft, docks and payloads into a managed fleet
- Management
- Schedule, assign and control aircraft across sites and territories
- Live viewing
- Live video and telemetry from any aircraft in the fleet
- Data sharing
- Captured data routed to the people and systems that need it
- Collaboration
- Multiple teams working the same picture at the same time
- Licensing
- Subscription seats, added and removed as the fleet changes
Everest is the commercial layer of the platform. Seats scale with the fleet, not with the sortie.
ShadowVu® Labs
Mission-specific payload development, in-house and with partners. Flexible tooling means a new variant reaches production in around two weeks rather than a product cycle.
Labs is where a mission requirement becomes a production variant. Payloads are developed in house and with partners, then drawn for manufacture rather than for a prototype, so the variant enters the same line as every other airframe. Flexible tooling is what makes the timescale credible: a new variant reaches production in around two weeks instead of a product cycle.
- In-house and partner payload development
- Client-specific customisation projects
- Two-week tooling adaptation
- Design rights held with design for manufacture
- 01
- Requirement defined with the operator, in the operator’s terms
- 02
- Payload and integration designed for manufacture, not for a one off
- 03
- Tooling adapted, around two weeks
- 04
- Variant enters production on the common platform
Design rights are held with design for manufacture, so the variant belongs to the production model.
Flown with the software your teams already run.
The aircraft is the easy part of an integration. The ground control stack is where a drone programme either fits the way an organisation already works, or quietly becomes somebody’s second job.
TAK / ATAK
Aircraft, video and telemetry present inside the common operating picture that defence, security and emergency teams already run. No separate screen, no separate training burden, no parallel picture to reconcile under pressure.
QGroundControl
Open standard planning, configuration and flight review. Mission planning is a documented, inspectable process rather than a proprietary black box, which matters when an operation has to be justified after the fact.
RTK native
Real time kinematic navigation is native to the platform rather than an upgrade path. Precise positioning and repeatable flight lines are available on every airframe, which is what makes scheduled autonomous routes worth flying twice.
Flexible comms
The communications layer is specified per deployment rather than fixed at the factory. Different sectors, territories and threat pictures do not share one answer, so the platform does not pretend that they do.
Manual and autonomous
Every airframe flies both ways. A pilot can take the aircraft at any point in an autonomous sortie, and an autonomous route can be handed back. Autonomy is a mode of operation here, not a separate product.
BVLOS with Quad-Dock
Paired with the dock, missions run beyond visual line of sight to a schedule. The same aircraft, the same ground control stack and the same data path, with the operator removed from the site rather than from the decision.
Payload options, camera fits and comms are specified per fleet. Where a requirement falls outside the standard configuration, it goes to Labs and comes back as a production variant rather than as a modification nobody can support.
Sub-brands lock up to the master brand.
Software carries Royal Blue. Hardware families carry Haze Grey. The ShadowVu wordmark never changes weight, never changes colour and never gives up first position.
Primary logotype, used alone
ShadowVu Labs
Payload and customisation engineering
ShadowVu Everest
Enterprise management and data platform
ShadowVu Quad Dock
Autonomous ground infrastructure
ShadowVu Quad Copter
Rotary airframe family
ShadowVu Fixed-wing
Fixed-wing airframe family
Sub-brands exist to name a capability, not to compete with the master brand. Registered marks are applied on first prominent use: ShadowVu® is a UK registered trademark, Quad-Dock™ is a trademark of the company, and Click-Fit™ is used for the airframe architecture.
Get the full picture
Specify the system, not just the aircraft.
Most conversations start with an airframe and end with a dock, a set of seats and a payload that did not exist six weeks earlier. Tell us what the site has to cover and we will work back from there.