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top down view of a BLK2FLY

BLK2FLY Wins Big with TIME Best Inventions of 2022 Award

By Christopher Dollard

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11/22/2022

We’re simply honored, humbled, and amazed that the Leica BLK2FLY won a spot on the TIME Best Inventions of 2022 award list. This is an exceptional achievement for the Leica BLK series of reality capture technology—the type of achievement that Hexagon’s teams have always aspired toward. It is incredible to receive such recognition from TIME, and Pascal Strupler, Business Director of Autonomous Reality Capture for Hexagon Geosystems and who helped develop the BLK2FLY from the beginning, was very happy to hear the news.

“Being part of the BLK2FLY journey as its Product Manager has been very exciting. With the goal of developing a BLK flying laser scanner that is very safe and easy to use, as well as compact, we had to really push the boundaries of what is technically possible,” Strupler said.

Technical expertise, creativity and perseverance brought us to this point today.

TIME solicited nominations from their editors and correspondents around the world, paying special attention to growing fields such as the electric vehicle industry, green energy, and the metaverse. TIME then evaluated each contender on several key factors, including originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact. The BLK2FLY won the award in the category of productivity.

“BLK2FLY being announced as one of the best inventions in 2022 by TIME magazine really is a great acknowledgement for the whole team,” Strupler continued. “It shows that all the efforts for overcoming the challenges within the recent years have paid off. I’m very thankful for the contributions of everyone involved.”

Leica BLK2FLY on a red podium

Before the BLK2FLY, drone operators who wanted to scan with LiDAR needed to rely on a payload. With the BLK2FLY, there is no payload—the BLK2FLY is fully integrated, and because it has full flight autonomy with advanced obstacle avoidance, it can scan where other scanners can’t.

Entire building facades and rooftops. High rises. Complex outdoor structures and facilities. It simply scans easy and fast, scans autonomously and safely, and gives the user reliable, immersive, and precise data as soon as the scan is complete. As far as productivity is concerned with reality capture, it makes the user’s job easier and faster while providing the capability to quickly capture structures and spaces that otherwise might be very difficult, if not impossible, to scan.

The BLK2FLY’s TIME Best Inventions award adds to a running tally for the autonomous flying laser scanner. Since its launch, it has won a 2022 CES Best of Innovation Award, a 2022 Irish Construction Excellence Award, a 2022 Muse Design Award, a Gold International Design Award, featured as Editor’s Pick in Architect’s Newspaper, and was named a finalist for the 2022 SXSW Innovation Awards.