Natural Power has acquired the Texas-based firm Ascent Technologies, a developer of software for commercial unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operations. The software will enable Natural Power to automate drone flights for gathering data during wind turbine blade inspections.The automation enabled by the software means that the drone system calculates and manages the optimal flight along the surfaces of the blades without pilot intervention, as well as constantly monitoring, adjusting and optimising camera angles, exposure, focal distance and timing of the image acquisition.