Drone Inspections

Specialized drone services company sees.ai has obtained what it describes as unprecedented authorization to conduct routine beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) inspections of live overhead electricity infrastructure in the UK.

Senators Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have proposed new legislation to increase the use of US-made drones in infrastructure projects. The bipartisan bill would authorize $100 million in competitive grants to help local governments leverage American drones in critical infrastructure inspections, maintenance, and construction activities.

Infrastructure inspections are a routine task for businesses like Valmont Industries. But a recent mission from Valmont is making headlines because it saw the company flying a gas-electric hybrid drone nonstop for 77 miles! The drone flew for almost three hours, from Childress to Aspermont in Texas, inspecting vital infrastructure like power lines, railroads, bridges, and more.

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is preparing to begin drone inspections of airports and other transport hubs to assess the security of those facilities, but before doing so has moved to address any public concerns that images or other identifying data will be collected of people who happen to be around areas under surveillance.

Infrastructure inspection platform gNext has announced a new partnership with Skydio to bypass the time-consuming manual uploading of drone data. Under the fresh integration, Skydio drone data can be sent directly to the cloud-based gNext platform over Wi-Fi.

Drone data-gathering company Phoenix Air Unmanned (PAU) has received a nation-wide waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration to use Flyfree’s Alta X UAVs during beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) powerline infrastructure inspection missions for clients.

Mike Holmes, a Canadian builder and television personality known for rescuing homeowners from botched construction jobs, says his firm will now be using drones to help improve the quality and efficiency of roof inspections for property insurance claims.

Drone manufacturer Skydio says its technology partner Qii.AI has won a contract to conduct automated ship inspections and detect corrosion for the Royal Canadian Navy. While the Qii.AI platform will provide AI-based data analytics, the visual data gathering part of the Navy’s ship inspection program will be carried out using Skydio drones.

Zeitview (formerly DroneBase) says it has expanded the rooftop assessment capabilities of its AI-enabled Property Insights drone inspection platform. The company’s new offerings include thermal inspections for commercial properties and AI/ML damage assessment for commercial, residential, and multi-family properties.

Drone services and ground robotic vehicle specialist InDro Robotics has received a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) UAV flights in the US, a first for a Canadian company according to the Toronto-based firm.

Worcestershire County in the UK has started trialing high-tech drones fitted with cameras to carry out bridge inspections. The county is home to around 1,500 bridge structures.

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) has taken another step in its increasing use of drones as tools in inspecting and managing its vast infrastructure by obtaining a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) waver for beyond visual line of sight flights (BVLOS) at its Blenheim-Gilboa Pumped Storage Power Project, in partnership with Skydio.

Drone services and delivery company Spright says it has obtained what it calls a “first of a kind” waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for specific beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) inspection missions.

Drone-based data collection and renewable energy sector inspection specialist DroneBase says it has raised an additional $55 million in funding to fuel its continued business expansion, which it will now pursue under the new brand entity Zeitview.

SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest wireless telecom operator that is now rapidly transforming into an AI company, says that it has developed an inspection system that checks the safety of cell towers using drones and automated image analysis.

Transport Canada has given its approval to Ontario Power Generation to operate inspection drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), without an onsite visual observer, at McConnell Lake Control Dam. Percepto, whose drone-in-a-box solution will make this feat possible, points out this is the first time regulators are allowing autonomous drone operations in Canada.

Update, January 27, 2023: American Water has clarified that advanced drone flights are being made possible courtesy of its partnership with the New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII), an New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) corporation which holds an FAA Part 91 Certificate of Authorization.

The earlier report from American Water follows…

Significant job losses are expected at leading autonomous drone inspection company American Robotics, as its Ondas Holdings owner prepares to integrate the activities of soon-to-be-acquired Israeli firm Airobotics.

Ground-breaking autonomous drone systems developer Percepto says it has attained another unprecedented Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) authorization, this time for its nested UAVs to be used at a solar power plant in Texas to perform highly automated inspections at high altitudes.

Utility provider Southern Company says it has reached a new milestone on a joint research project with Mississippi State University (MSU). The duo is finding ways for the energy provider to safely expand the use of drones to map critical infrastructure, assess weather-related damage, and conduct routine utility inspections.

Already accustomed to using drones to inspect its enormous 1,400 circuit miles of transmission infrastructure, the New York Power Authority (NYPA) says it’s now turning to artificial intelligence (AI) analytics to both speed up and improve detection of weak points requiring repair, and take action to prevent costly outages.