An article by sUAS News shares:
Skyports Drone Services and Field have announced a new service that gives utility and infrastructure owners and operators rapid and detailed insights into their assets to enable and inform critical decision-making faster, save inspection time and operational costs, improve safety, and reduce carbon footprint. The partnership combines Field’s unrivalled linear infrastructure inspection ecosystem based on Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) Technology and software developed in Norway with Skyports Drone Services’ global specialism in Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations.
The new service, which is available across the UK and Europe, uses Field’s complete drone, sensor, and software solution to conduct aerial inspections and capture mission-critical data. The system instantly captures and transfers data to the cloud with the highest cyber-security standards and supplies on-demand insights, reducing the need for physical inspections and limiting workers’ exposure to potentially hazardous situations.
“This new service offering not only provides utility and infrastructure owners with rapid and detailed insights into their assets but also facilitates critical decision-making, cuts operational costs, enhances safety, and produces significantly lower emissions than existing solutions,” said Alex Brown, Director of Skyports Drone Services.
“We look forward to making the Field solution available to rail and utilities customers and continuing to demonstrate the value of BVLOS drone operations.”
Current asset survey methods for the rail and utilities sector are typically highly manual, relying on labor-intensive single-sensor drone flights flown visual line of sight, or use of helicopters. Field’s multi-sensor payload can complete multiple surveys at one time. Combined with Skyports Drone Services’ flight permissions and experience of long-range BVLOS flight, the new solution will enable up to 100km of linear infrastructure to be surveyed in a single day.
Field’s advanced drone technology is transforming linear inspections, offering a robust service even in challenging environments. Their drones, equipped with a multifaceted sensor array, simultaneously collect high-resolution and thermal imagery along with LiDAR and Nadir images, drastically improving the efficiency and quality of data collection for infrastructure monitoring. The integration of AI with LiDAR data accelerates the detection of encroaching vegetation near power lines within just two days after capture, which is pivotal for maintaining vegetation management programs. This rapid identification not only saves time and costs but also prevents potential power outages and hazardous line collisions.
Additionally, the drone service employs AI for defect identification in images, streamlining the maintenance process by automating the detection of flaws. This automation significantly reduces the time spent on manual reviews, mitigates the risk of blackouts, and can save millions in potential financial penalties by ensuring a reliable power supply to customers.
Soaring to new heights, together.
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