Drone News & Articles

Kespry has announced the results of the industry’s first mining and aggregates customer survey which has illustrated the significant benefits the company offers.

The drone-based aerial intelligence solution provider surveyed 220 North America-based mining and aggregates companies that use its platform for inventory management, mine planning, materials management, contractor benchmarking, and boosting employee safety across 3,311 worksites.

Amongst the survey’s results was that a fifth of the companies surveyed said they were saving $50,000 (£40k) – $100,000+ (£80k) a year using Kespry, with a further 24% in the $30,000-$49,999 bracket.

There was also evidence that firms are saving a significant number of employee hours by using the platform, with 15% claiming to save between 600 and 2,400 hours and 27% saying the figure was between 120 and 240 hours.

The firm’s CEO, George Matthew, said: “These survey results highlight why our growing customer base continues expanding its usage of Kespry.

“More and more mining and aggregates companies are experiencing tremendous productivity, efficiency and safety benefits as they standardize on Kespry and roll out our platform across multiple sites and geographies.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with the positive feedback and insight into how Kespry is positively impacting companies’ operations and the day-to-day lives of mining and aggregates employees for the better.”

Other results from the survey included; 78% said they were more frequently able to survey their sites on demand; 65% achieved greater data accuracy while reducing discrepancies and rework; and 55% stated they have achieved safer operations as a result of using the company’s technology.

Firms were also asked what led them to adopt Kespry, with 82% saying the platform’s ease of use played a role, 79% praising the speed of data capture and turnaround and 64% choosing the system for its turnkey hardware guarantee designed to maximize uptime.

Delivering a fully integrated solution from drone data capture to industry-specific analytics, Kespry serves customers across North America, Europe and Australia, including John Deere, Hancock Claims Consultants, Catastrophe Response Unit (CRU), Lehigh Hanson/Heidelberg, and Colas USA.

The Chinese farmers' traditional working scene, which usually featured a sweaty vest and chapped hands is gradually being converted by the country's technological advancements in relation to  artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and a series of improvements in infrastructure.

The first touch of agricultural drones happened in 2015 with Li Zhiming, a cotton farmer based in Yuli county, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China's largest cotton-growing area. At that time, some farmers around him had already applied the technology on their own plantations to spray pesticide in the air.

An agricultural drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle used for farming purposes in order to help increase crop production and monitor crop growth.

Li, being curious about the use of drones in agriculture, chose to give it a try by using a drone on his 4,900 mu (326.67 hectares) cotton farm, after which, he no longer had to endure tedious farm work.

"Drones have brought us greater efficiency and higher revenues," Li told the Global Times over the weekend.

"I used to rely on tractors to do the pesticide spraying, which took a lot of time. In addition, tractors did damage the cotton plants during the spraying process," said Li. In particular, the use of drones to spray a kind of drug that can control the height of cotton plant has proven to be more efficient than the use of tractors in doing the work, he added.

No tractors mean no damage to the cotton growth, which guarantees greater yields, Li said.

Besides, the volume of work that used to be undertaken by two tractors in seven days can now be completed by four drones in only two days, Li noted.

Being one of the Chinese farmers that have ridden the wave of intelligent agriculture, Li is grateful for the benefits brought about by the technological advancements in the country.

He bought himself four drones just a month ago with each drone priced at about 70,000 yuan ($10,110). Previously, he paid for flying services provided by the domestic agricultural drone maker XAG based in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province. He used to pay 8 yuan for each mu of land and spraying the whole area cost him about 280,000 yuan for seven instances of spraying during the cotton growing period.

"Now we can use own drones to save costs and we can also help neighboring farmers in spraying to earn some money," said Li.

About half of the cotton farmland in Xinjiang has been taken over by XAG's agricultural drones, the company's representative told the Global Times.

Going a step further, Li has already adopted XAG's digital scarecrow on his farm, which is used to monitor and produce data for further targeted services.

AI born from the land 

"AI is making headlines nowadays and we're bringing the technology to the field not for the sake of chasing the trend. We have indeed accumulated related data from the land and the crops," said Justin Gong, co-founder and vice president of XAG.

Gong likened the data to "fruit" grown in the field, based on which, the agri-tech company can conduct an analysis at the data center located in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang Province.

For example, if farmers in South China's Hainan Province want to know for how long their dragon fruit requires sunshine and when it is ready to be put on the market, all of this information can be determined via the collected data, or AI to help farmers make wiser decisions, Gong told the Global Times on Friday.

The company has obtained data on more than 60 million mu of land in the country.

"AI in the agricultural sector is a natural follow-up after related technologies like drones and the internet of things were introduced," said Gong.

Founded in 2007, but turning its eye on the agricultural sector in 2014, the company has 30,000 drones so far working in fields across the crop dusting.

Although the current operational area that has been covered by drones makes up only five percent of all the farmland in the country, Gong is confident that more drones will be used to help Chinese farmers become more professional in the modern agricultural industry.

Compared with traditional spraying heads, the ones used on drones are upgraded technologically so that one drop of pesticide can be divided into smaller drops and sprayed on more farmland, Gong explained.

The Qianzhan Industry Research Institute forecast that the value of the domestic agricultural drone market will reach more than 12.8 billion yuan by 2021, with an annual compound growth rate of 38 percent.

According to the No.1 central document, the first policy statement released by central authorities earlier this year, and seen as an indicator of policy priorities, China has vowed to step up its breakthroughs in key agricultural core technologies and promote independent innovation in areas such as smart agriculture and green agricultural inputs.

Faced with a huge growth potential, domestic tech giants are striving to make larger footprints in this sector.

Shenzhen-based DJI, the world's largest commercial drone manufacturer by market share, is also not missing out on opportunities in the agricultural drone sector. 

It launched its latest agricultural drone, the T16, at the end of last year, which features dynamic systems to enhance efficiency and accuracy. In April the drone carried out a fully automated pesticide spraying of an orchard, without a human piloting it, based on a three-dimensional model and AI routes.

"This is the world's first AI application being shown by these agricultural drones," said Xie Tiandi, DJI's director of communications.

"However, we have to say that a real application scenario is still very far in the future and the market is still being educated, so a great  leap forward should not be expected any time soon," Xie told the Global Times on Thursday.

In 2015, DJI launched its first agricultural drone, the MG-1, marking its diversification into the industry's drone market.

DJI has estimated that about one-third of the country's farmland could ultimately be serviced by drones.

In addition, China's internet giants are also betting on smart agriculture increasing the efficiency and the income for those of China's farmers that are trained to make better use of big data.

"In the past, farmers took care of their own individual farms and decided what to plant on their own, but now they can use the results of the collected data and produce exactly the kind of rice  suitable for targeted consumers," said Zhang Xinguang, senior operation advisor at Agriculture Development Department, Alibaba Alicountryside Business Unit.

Alibaba launched the ET Agricultural Brain last year, which is backed up by its cloud computing arm Alibaba Cloud, in a move to transform China's farming industry via its AI-backed technology, through which production details can be digitally recorded.

The project aims at helping farmers potentially achieve an income of $1,000 for rice per acre of land.

In Hinggan League, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Alibaba is reinforcing its role as a platform to help sell local rice to the current technology experts on the whole planting process.

"Sensors embedded on the farmd can help them detect whether or not the soil needs water and if the temperature is good for growth," Zhang told the Global Times on Friday.

"Automatic irrigation will soon be realized when the sensor collected data shows what land lacks water," he noted.

Local farmers' income has surged by 40-50 percent because of targeted rice planting, yields and sales throughout Alibaba's ecosystem, according to Zhang. 

Cooperation trending

Collected data shows that China has a mere 7 percent of the word's arable land yet it needs to feed 22 percent of the world's population, the fact of which calls for more efficient plantations with higher crop yields.

Intelligent agriculture has met with some difficulties due to the small-scale peasant economy, the major farming economy in China, since it poses an obstacle for intensive production.

"Intensive production and management are the trend for future smart farming, based on which, digital technology can better play its role," said Zhang.

In this sense, both hardware and software firms, as well as local government, should work together to promote the process, he suggested.

As far as Gong is concerned, China's typical small-scale farm is more flexible in terms of adjusting crop planting according to the demand end as the country's consumption needs begin to accelerate.

In comparison, the US' large farms find it difficult to make quick changes if they want to plant a different crop since all related facilities are tailored for that set crop, said Gong.

Gong emphasized that international cooperation should be strengthened in the digital agricultural sector. 

XAG, Alibaba Rural Taobao and German multinational Bayer initiated the Sustainable Farming Program last year, in which the latest technologies are developed to build an intelligent agriculture management system with a transparent, traceable food value chain.

"The ongoing China-US trade war has not impacted on our technological cooperation with US firms. On the contrary, we find it more significant to seek joint efforts during this period, and our US counterparts think the same way," said Gong.

"It is acknowledged that the US has leading technology in the digital agricultural sector, but when its firms want to make a foray in the Chinese market, they find some of their advantages cannot be applied to Chinese farmlands, so they badly need a local partner," he explained.

Researchers from NASA and the University of Guam have remotely mapped a large stretch of coral off the coast of the western Pacific island.

In May, the research team took less than two weeks to study two marine habitats using an uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, to create a centimetre-resolution digital model of the reef structure. Previously, the survey, which could help conservation efforts, would have taken divers a month. The team hopes that its efforts will help researchers to better track changes in reef structure over time.

“You’d be able to get so much coverage in a small amount of time,” says one of the project’s principal investigators, Romina King, an environmental geographer at the University of Guam in Mangilao, a village on the eastern shore of the island.

About one-third of corals in the shallow waters around the US territory have already died following bleaching events between 2013 and 2017, when warm temperatures caused corals to expel the important algae that give the coral their colour and provide them with essential nutrients, says King. Scientists lacked detailed measurements of reef structure, so there was no baseline to identify areas where conservation efforts were and weren’t working. Now, thanks to drones, that’s changing.

UAVs are popular with hobbyists, and increasingly, says King, among Earth scientists. In May, meteorologists in the United States began launching drones to study intense rotating thunderstorms called supercells across the Great Plains.

The Guam team’s UAV is a US$15,000, 6-rotor carbon-fibre drone made by technology company DJI, based in Shenzhen, China. The Matrice 600 is outfitted with GPS sensors, hard drives, a memory card, a $90,000 RGB ‘fluid cam’ that corrects the distortion caused by the surface of the water to photograph beneath the waves, and a 7-colour ultraviolet sensor for testing NASA coral-identification technology. Including batteries, the assembly weighs about 12 kilograms.

The team sent the UAV on short hops from the shore to pre-set coordinates 30.5 metres above Guam’s Tumon Bay and Tepungan Bay reefs. In total, the researchers collected about 11 terabytes of data across roughly 5 square kilometres, including image files and flight parameters such as speed, altitude and spatial orientation. NASA is using a supercomputer to process and stitch those data into 3D models of the reefs — a process that could take six months.

Ved Chirayath, an Earth scientist at Stanford University, California, who developed some of the UAV’s imaging technologies, says he chose the Matrice 600 for its ruggedness: if one of the six batteries or rotors dies, it can still fly. Still, when the power levels of two batteries unexpectedly dropped mid-flight and the drone had to make an emergency landing in shallow water, the team had to ship in a backup from California to complete its work.

“Field work is hard, UAVs fail, instruments die,” Chirayath says. And then there’s the human element: “There’s nothing that makes [you] more seasick than staring at a drone screen on boat.”

A siren blares in the distance, prompting Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman) to look up at the grey skies above the walls that hold him and his fellow inmates captive. Then, we cut to a stark white prison bus winding its way down the wet road leading to Shawshank State Penitentiary. In the same take, we soar high above those walls, gliding above the inmates herding toward the gates. The only sound: The royal blue flag of Maine snapping in the harsh wind.

Hovering over the scene in a helicopter, watching vigilantly on a small monitor, Michael Kelem’s camera rolled, capturing the long opening shot that set the scene for the critically acclaimed feature film “The Shawshank Redemption.”

Michael Kelem captures an aerial shot of the mountains from the side of the helicopter.

Michael Kelem captures an aerial shot of the mountains from the side of the helicopter. Photo courtesy of Michael Kelem.

By the time Kelem ’19 (Radio-TV-Film) worked on the Academy Award-nominated 1994 drama, he already had worked in the industry for years as an aerial cinematographer — a job that involves capturing footage from the air by helicopter to establish a setting, capture the main action from above or create background elements for visual effects.

Now with more than three decades of experience, Kelem has filmed footage for blockbuster feature films including “Mission: Impossible,” “Godzilla,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Jurassic World” and the recent “Captain Marvel.” He also has worked on wildlife documentaries such as BBC’s “Frozen Planet,” “The Hunt” and “Planet Earth,” for which he and the rest of the cinematography team received the Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming in 2007 .

Kelem first set foot on the CSUN campus in 1976, but his final graduation walk — diploma in hand — didn’t happen until May, 43 years later.

When Kelem first began his journey at CSUN, he was eager to take classes in his chosen major, Radio-TV-Film. This wasn’t a decision that pleased his parents, who thought a film degree was inferior to getting training for a trade, such as plumbing, Kelem said. But his heart was in the film industry and in camera work.

For a few years, he kept up a steady pace toward his bachelor’s degree, completing a handful of credits at a time, striving to do his best at his studies as he worked to support himself through college.

Michael Kelem with Richard Brooks Burton and Erika Wangberg Burton at the 2007 Emmys.

Michael Kelem with Richard Brooks Burton and Erika Wangberg Burton at the 2007 Emmys. Photo courtesy of Michael Kelem.

However, in 1982, the College of Arts, Media, and Communication restructured and renamed the major to Radio-TV-Broadcasting, which meant the program focused more on honing the skills needed for radio and television broadcasting, such as learning FCC regulations. It wasn’t what Kelem envisioned for his own educational journey, he said.

Deciding the refocused program was not going to help equip him for the film industry, Kelem withdrew and put his studies on indefinite hold to pursue learning on his own. After all, with his senior film project done, he had extensive experience. So, he worked his way up the ladder of the camera department for various companies by doing ground work as a production assistant or a camera assistant on sets for commercials and music videos, including Michael Jackson’s Beat It” and the infamous 1984 Pepsi commercial in which Jackson’s hair caught fire.

Kelem aimed to become a director of photography — the chief of the camera and lighting departments on a film set. But a seminar he attended that introduced a variety of emerging filmmaking technologies caught his interest: Kelem learned about the gyro-stabilized camera system, which allowed filmmakers to move their cameras in new ways and tell their stories from new perspectives — the sky was, quite literally, the limit.

“I fell in love with the technology, and I liked the things that it produced,” he said.

After mastering the gyro-stabilized camera in 1986, he first worked as a camera assistant and as technical support for operating the system. Then, in 1992, his career as an aerial cinematographer took off, beginning with “Cliffhanger,” starring Sylvester Stallone.

On any given film, Kelem works off a director’s shot list and the director of photography’s technical specifications. He takes his camera up on a helicopter to get a bird’s-eye view of the setting, the action and the story of a scene, providing the director and editor additional options to build the final cut of a film.

From Blockbusters to Bachelor’s Degree

Throughout his career, Kelem has worked with Hollywood’s elite to see dozens of big-budget titles from start to finish. But in the midst of the hectic work, there was one major, unfinished project that lingered in his mind — his college degree.

CSUN had stayed connected with Kelem through Jarrod Fasching, the assistant director of development for what is now known as the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication. In 2018, Fasching visited Santa Barbara and called some alumni who lived in the area — one of them was Kelem.

In their conversation, Kelem expressed his reasons for leaving the first time, but that he hadn’t closed the door on completing his degree. Soon, Fasching connected the Department of Cinema and Television Arts with Kelem, who was pleased to know that the major now housed a program dedicated to film production and, best of all, that he could carry forward any units he’d accumulated since 1976 between his classes from CSUN and community colleges.

It was time, Kelem said, to cross that finish line.

Michael Kelem captures footage of beluga whales for BBC's "Frozen Planet." 

Michael Kelem captures footage of beluga whales for BBC’s “Frozen Planet.” Photo courtesy of Michael Kelem.

“It turns out I had very few credits left to do,” he said. “And I thought, ‘well, this is something that is left unfinished, and I’d like to finish it. I’d like to have that degree.'”

In fall 2018, Kelem enrolled for the three remaining elective classes he needed to earn his bachelor’s degree, including one on the history of American cinema in the 1970s, which he particularly loved. Taking mostly online classes, he managed to carve out time between production work to complete his requirements.

“[Kelem] knew a degree wasn’t required for his career success, but he wanted to show he could follow through,” Fasching said. “He even took the Upper Division Writing Proficiency Exam, in his early 60s!”

On May 19, Kelem finally walked the graduation stage on the lawn of the Delmar T. Oviatt Library, to claim a diploma that had been waiting for him for more than 30 years.

If one were to film the occasion from the sky, the audience would see thousands of students from Mike Curb College in their caps and gowns. The camera might zoom in on Kelem, sitting among them and grinning at the red and white commencement program in his hands.

“In the commencement book, I looked up my major,” he said, laughing. “So there’s Bachelor of Arts in Cinema and Television Arts, which I thought I was transferring into, but then I didn’t see my name there and looked a couple pages over. And there’s me and my own category, which is Bachelor of Arts in Radio-Television-Film, because that’s the one that I continued.”

The graduation ceremony evoked more emotion than he expected, Kelem said.

“It felt very satisfying to work all these years and then also say, ‘I have a degree,’ because I’ve never given up on the learning part,” he said. “When you’re walking [onto the stage], you feel like you’ve accomplished something. You feel like, ‘Oh, this is what I would have done 30 years ago.'”

New Degree, New Passions

With a bachelor’s degree under his belt, Kelem said he plans to continue his educational journey by pursuing a master’s degree and delving deeper into film analysis — a new passion he discovered after returning to CSUN.

He also plans to continue working as a freelance aerial cinematographer, with a number of projects already queued up. Several include filming wildlife, such as aerial footage of polar bears for a Netflix production. He’s also credited as the aerial cinematographer for Disney’s upcoming “Jungle Cruise” and the third installment of the “Jumanji” franchise.

Michael Kelem hams it up with penguins in Antarctica. Photo courtesy of Michael Kelem.

Even after more than three decades of aerial work, Kelem said he still finds a thrill in the process.

“Nearly every time, you go, ‘I like flying, I like seeing things from the air, I like … getting a different perspective,'” he said. “It’s not the worst thing in the world.”

In a typical set-up for a shoot, it’s just him and the pilot.

That can make capturing footage difficult at times, Kelem said. When shooting for the BBC nature programs, where he filmed in places like Botswana and Antarctica, he had to rely on local pilots. “They’re very good at spotting animals, but they don’t necessarily know how to move a camera,” he said.

But when he gets to work with a pilot that he knows well and with whom he shares a vision, magic happens, Kelem said.

“The most gratifying part of the work is when you discover and create stuff in the air that nobody asked for, but you are the only person that can discover that,” he said. “So, you have to keep your eyes open at all times and be ready to roll.”

Besides watching the monitor that displays the image visible to the camera’s lens, he keeps his peripheral vision alert to see what might be coming up in the space and get the pilot to adjust the helicopter and the camera.

For the “Shawshank Redemption” opener, Kelem kept his eyes peeled for any element that could add interest to the scene. In this case, the Maine state flag was a surprise.

“We just happened to have been able to take advantage of this flag pole up high on a roof and have it wipe through the frame,” he said. “They added a sound effect of the flag rippling, because they thought that was a great moment that we got.”

A growing number of American firefighters are now using drones to help with their live-saving work.

The city of Fremont, California uses 14 drones to help fight fires and carry out other public safety and rescue activities.

Jeff Kleven is the acting chief of operations for the Fremont Fire Department. He told VOA that, in the future, every fire truck will be equipped with a drone to assist firefighters.

Drones used by fire departments usually have additional equipment added to collect valuable information for firefighters. Such tools can identify fire sources, extreme heat areas and the positions of firefighters in the field.

Recently, a police search and rescue team in Fremont used a drone equipped with an infrared camera that can identify body heat. The technology was able to find a lost, deaf child at night.

The New York-based Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College examines the use of drones by public safety departments across the United States. The center estimated last year that more than 900 state and local agencies in the U.S. use drones for police, fire and emergency services.

The Fremont Fire Department received its drone systems from Chinese technology company DJI – the world’s largest drone maker.

Recently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, repeated a warning that Chinese-made drones could be leaking information to China. In 2017, the U.S. Army barred the use of DJI's drones.

Jeff Kleven said his department takes such concerns very seriously. But he said officials have been careful to take steps to prevent any data leaks to China.

“We are well aware of the accusations that are being made. It’s not something new,” Kleven said. He added that the department attempts to keep the data local to reduce the possibility that it could be shared. “There are ways we don’t have to be connected to the internet…We can isolate our data within our system. We are confident with that.”

Romeo Durscher leads DJI’s relations with public safety agencies. He denied the accusations of information being leaked to China. He said the company has worked during the past year to provide drone users more security controls over their data.

“We are not in the business of controlling data,” Durscher said. “But we want to give the tools to the operator to say how the data is being stored or processed or transmitted. And those pieces are in place.”

Durscher estimates that more than 1,000 U.S. fire, police and other emergency first responders use drones. He said this has led to more than 200 lives saved worldwide.

For those of you in Sydney: Matthew Sleeth presents a cinematic three-channel video installation featuring custom built drones with live video feeds, laser set-design, opera singers with an original libretto that combine to drive a narrative of desire, fear and destruction. Loosely structured around the myth of Icarus, the installation is a poetic exploration of our broader love affair with new technologies.

Join Matthew Sleeth in conversation with Carriageworks Director Programs, Daniel Mudie Cunningham at 11.30am on Saturday 22 June.

As the second largest cooperative in the nation, Middle Tennessee Electric manages more than 225,000 meters and 12,000 miles of energized line. The cooperative distributes electricity to about 212,000 residential and business members in a large and diverse four-county area just south of Nashville, Tennessee.

With many of the wood poles in the subject inspection area towering at more than 70 ft tall and nearing or exceeding 30 years old, Middle Tennessee Electric focuses on regular ground inspections to identify any issues that could affect reliability. As such, conducting an overhead inspection in this rural area poses a significant number of challenges. To access these structures, the company invested in specialized bucket trucks, but it only has a few of these vehicles within its fleet.

Inspecting Infrastructure

Recently, the company took a time-saving approach by partnering with Preformed Line Products (PLP) Inspection Services to conduct a comprehensive aerial inspection of 1500 structures with drone technology. By flying above and alongside Middle Tennessee’s infrastructure, drones were able to capture thousands of high-resolution images and vast amounts of data to help detect reliability concerns.

Done the conventional way, the overhead line inspection would have taken 18 months to two years. Because it would take the crew longer to set up the bucket truck than to do the actual inspection, this approach would have been very labor-intensive and time consuming. For example, some of the area was located near a busy area of the city, requiring flaggers to provide traffic control. In just a few weeks, however, PLP Inspection Services was able to complete the project in Woodbury, Tennessee, using drones.

Identifying Problems

By using drone technology, the team could get a better visualization of the equipment including transformers, insulators and splices. PLP Inspection Services’ uses several types of drones to collect data, including a dual vision (two-camera) drone that captures high-resolution electro-optical images and infrared imagery in the same flight. Using high-resolution first-person view goggles, PLP’s onsite engineers get a drone’s-eye view of the inspection as it occurs.

The PLP Inspection Services crew consists of a pilot, a safety observer and a field engineer. The industry experienced field engineer from PLP worked with a utility lineman to identify major reliability concerns during the on-site inspection process and immediately reported the information to Middle Tennessee Electric’s team. PLP also provided an Inspection Dashboard, which allowed the cooperative to monitor inspection progress in real time.

As an added safety measure, PLP Inspection Services pairs a visual observer (a person dedicated to continuously monitoring the drone’s path) with each drone pilot.

Initially, the group found such issues as hollowed-out poles from woodpecker damage and bolts hanging by the outside of the poles. Also, the drone images revealed chipped insulators, fungus growth on top of the poles, water egress and pole top rot and split crossarms. To discover hot spots, PLP used high-tech infrared cameras, which could find loose connections on devices and splices that had issues.

The drone inspection discovered severe rot on the top of a pole

The drone inspection discovered severe rot on the top of a pole.

From the ground, it would have been nearly impossible for the linemen to detect these issues. Instead, they would have to set up the specialized truck to get high enough to spot these problems.

Analyzing Images

Following drone inspections, utilities are often left with thousands of images and no specific way to analyze and categorize them. However, one of the biggest advantages of partnering with PLP was the turnkey service they provide. As opposed to Middle Tennessee Electric wading through the vast amounts of data on their own, PLP provided them with the complete analysis and recommendations, a standard feature of the company’s Level 1 inspections. This saved the utility an immense amount of time and effort while also allowing it to better use its own resources.

To help Middle Tennessee Electric categorize the work orders, PLP’s engineers and subject matter experts in Cleveland, Ohio, first reviewed the images to look for anomalies. Next, they drew from PLP’s 70-plus years of utility industry knowledge and product testing experience to classify the images and assign each component category a rating. Finally, PLP’s GIS Analyst created an interactive map of the service territory with color-coded areas so Middle Tennessee Electric could prioritize work around specific locations and infrastructure assets.

Customers can view color-coded results with PLP’s Results Dashboard

Customers can view color-coded results at a glance with PLP’s Results Dashboard.

In addition, PLP recorded all of the issues on a spreadsheet and provided a detailed report complete with executive summary, explanation of trends, and examples of common reliability concerns observed. Additionally, all images captured during the inspection were cataloged by structure and delivered to Middle Tennessee Electric. The utility can then easily archive the thousands of images for future reference.

Taking Action

Typically, Middle Tennessee Electric has a six-year maintenance cycle, but as a result of the recent drone inspections, the company worked the pressing issues into its work plans. Based on the recommendations and ratings from PLP, Middle Tennessee Electric prioritized the tasks by ranking them from minor to critical. For example, some issues wouldn’t cause an immediate failure and could wait a year or two to resolve. Others, however, could cause an imminent failure if not addressed immediately.

Throughout the company’s service territory, four linemen are responsible for the overhead maintenance of Middle Tennessee Electric’s system. The company has four main area offices, and each area office has four to six crews of four to five linemen. In addition, three support engineers and two designers work with the field team to identify and solve problems in the field.

When working on these work orders, the linemen can pull up photos of specific poles on their iPads through the work management system. That way, they can more easily visualize the issues and devise a proper plan of action. For example, the Explorer app for ArcGIS allows field crews to access the inspection map from their mobile devices.

In the future, the company may expand the use of drone inspection services to other parts of its service territory to save time and labor hours for its field and engineering teams. By using drones and partnering with a company like PLP, the utility can efficiently inspect its infrastructure in remote locations or even in logistically challenged areas like busy neighborhoods without shutting down traffic.

Sidebar: By the Numbers: Drone Inspection

1485 structures analyzed

231.7 GBs of data collected and analyzed

36,449 images collected

303 reliability concerns found

77 miles flown by the drones

621 drone flights

Howard County homeowners and real estate agents have embraced a relatively new, increasingly valuable high-tech tool for selling homes: Drones.

Drone photography and videography, featuring aerial shots of sprawling estates, picturesque views of expansive, well-landscaped yards and pleasant images of inviting, tidy neighborhoods, is all the rage these days.

Several drone companies offer their services here, and some of the larger real estate companies supply drone photography and videography in-house.

Patrick Buesing, an agent and videographer for the Bob Lucido Team of Keller Williams Integrity in Ellicott City, says Howard County is ideal for using drones – remote-controlled cameras akin to miniature helicopters – to sell homes.

“It’s a beautiful place to live,” says Buesing, who lives in Columbia, noting the county’s many well-laid-out neighborhoods, rolling countryside and multitude of parks. “And with our aerial [photography], we can really showcase that beauty.”

While drone photography can be used for houses of all sizes and styles – and even to shoot interiors – it is most regularly used for exteriors of high-end homes with large yards.

“It’s really effective for projects that are larger and have land, where you need the perspective to appreciate how grand the property is,” says Tyler Minsberg, a full-time Realtor for the Lucido Team.

“It’s a great way to highlight houses with water or houses on golf courses,” agrees Creig Northrop, head of Clarksville-based Northrop Realty. Northrop has been using drone photographs to help sell homes for some 10 years, he said, and more recently, tying them to drone-shot videos. He said his company uses the technology to market about one-third of their properties.

“The advantage is you can see the lifestyle associated with the home,” he adds. “It’s like having a wide-angle lens on your back yard.”

David Kivioja, a retired Air Force colonel and test pilot, operates his company, Eagle Eye Imaging, out of his Woodbine home. Eagle Eye provides a range of drone-related services, among them agricultural (assessing plant growth and detecting bug infestations, for example), construction (assessing progress), and real estate sales.

Kivioja started his company about two-and-a-half years ago, and his timing was not incidental. He launched Eagle Eye Imaging shortly after the Federal Aviation Administration loosened restrictions on commercial drones, simplifying and speeding up a permitting process for flying in what is known as “controlled airspace” (around airports, for example) that previously took months to complete.

Although parts of eastern Howard are in controlled airspace because of their proximity to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, the process for acquiring the necessary authorization even there has become fairly quick and easy, Kivioja said. And, he added, the more stringent restrictions on flights near the nation’s capital do not extend into Howard County.

Still, Kivioja said, lingering confusion over those restrictions has slowed the use of drones here. “I think other parts of the country, this technology has taken on a lot quicker,” he says. “But it’s growing. Each year, it’s betting busier and busier.”

Another drone pilot and businessman with local connections said drone photography is almost expected now for many properties.

“A few years ago, it was more of a novelty,” says Dan Edmonson, whose company, Dronegenuity, does work in Howard County. “Now, especially for larger properties, people want to see the entire scope and scale of the property.”

What his company shoots, he said, depends on what the agent or the homeowner is trying to demonstrate. “If they want to show that this is waterfront property, on a lake or whatever, that’s hard to show effectively with plain old ground photos.”

Amanda Koehler, who operates Charm City Virtual Tours, an Ellicott City company that specializes in architectural, commercial and real estate photography, has been using drone technology to help agents and homeowners sell property since 2016. Business, she said, has grown steadily.

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“It seems sellers really like having aerial photos taken of their property,” she says. “It has that ‘wow’ factor.”

Increasingly, Koehler said, buyers like it as well. “It gives them an overview of the property, and the neighborhood, the proximity of schools, that sort of thing. I think it’s just going to continue to grow.”

Koehler said that while drone photography will show those homes in a good light, it can be the opposite for other types of homes. Images of a run-down neighborhood or a dilapidated neighboring house with a messy yard can scare off would-be buyers.

For those very reasons, drones are increasingly used to supplement home inspections, according to Eagle Eye’s Kivioja. “They can reveal things like stains on the roof, things you can’t see from the ground,” he explained.

Drones and real estate are now considered a match made in home-selling heaven.

“Drones can do a lot of great things, for different kinds of videos, movies, maybe TV shows with car chases,” says the Lucido Team’s Buesing. “But what they’re really suited for is real estate. … It just gives a whole new look to a home, any home.

“We’re seeing drones everywhere,” he adds, “and I think we’re only going to see more of them.”

The agricultural drone market is expected to grow from USD 1.2 billion by 2019 to USD 4.8 billion by 2024.

Key factors driving the growth of the market for agricultural drones are pressure on global food supply due to growing world population and increase in venture funding for development of agriculture drones, according to a report by MarketsandMarkets.

“With advancements such as automation and GPS guidance that have already changed the farming industry, drones are now poised to modernise it once again,” states the report.

More accurate than satellite imagery

The researchers say that “drones allow real-time monitoring at a far more accurate and cost-effective level than previously used satellite imagery. Drones equipped with hyperspectral, multispectral, or thermal sensors are able to identify areas that require changes in irrigation. Once crops start growing, these sensors calculate their vegetation index, an indicator of health, by measuring the crop’s heat signature.”

High adoption of agricultural drones in North America

North America is expected to hold the largest share of the agriculture drones market during the forecast period. This growth is attributed to the exemption from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under the part 107 rule which is leading to high adoption of drones in agriculture. This is attracting more investments by venture capitalists in the agriculture drones market.

Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) Operation

According to the researchers, the ability to fly drones Beyond the Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) represents the next big opportunity. BVLOS operations can help farmers to collect data in a way that is safer and more cost-efficient than traditional methods. A common component of drone legislation is a safety restriction, limiting maximum operating distances to 500m. 

BVLOS flying would be a game-changer for the drone industry, states the report. Sense-and-avoid systems, remote viewing using imaging devices and pre-programmed return-to-base measures, which are triggered if the drone loses contact, all mean drones can be safely operated in rural areas. Further testing of this technology is taking place with the aim of proving that BVLOS flying could be safe and become a reality in the near future.

Plant Pollination

Intensive modern farming methods and the unravelling consequences of global climate change could form a threat to bees, states the report: “A decline in bee numbers has prompted worldwide concern over the future of plant pollination which underpins horticultural and agricultural production.”

Scientists at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and researchers in Japan have investigated the use of drone bees to carry out the task. The drone bee has proved it is capable of pollinating flowers without damaging the plant. The research teams are now progressing with an auto-piloted version that could be used by growers to carry out the work on its own.

Researchers say that drones allow real-time monitoring at a far more accurate and cost-effective level than previously used satellite imagery.

Currently, most spraying is carried out using single drone units to either patch, strip or spot spray. Rapidly developing technology within the drone may allow much larger areas to be sprayed in the future. Drones can fly in formation as they are already capable of communicating with each other to avoid collisions. This could allow a string or swarm of drones to apply pesticide across whole fields in the future.

While trials are under way, the main obstacle to success could lie in legislation with governments and military officials wary of terrorist threat presented by a swarm of UAVs, say the MarketsandMarkets researchers. 

Delair’s drones and data analytics platform will allow Eramet to develop digital twins of its mining sites and accelerate the digitalization of its operational centres to provide Cloud and artificial intelligence services.

Eramet, a global mining and metallurgy group, and Delair, a global provider of end-to-end, drone-based solutions for enterprises, have signed a framework agreement concerning the Group’s digital transformation of its mining activities. This strategic agreement will position digital intelligence at the core of the company’s growth, operational performance, and competitive edge. Currently, the agreement allows Eramet to access Delair Aerial Intelligence (delair.ai), a new collaborative platform for analyzing drone data and turning the results into valuable business insights.

Since January 2019, the Delair.ai solution has been up and running at the Tiébaghi mine in New Caledonia, and by the end of the year it will be used by all of the Group’s mines. Nine drones are currently in operation at Eramet, with an additional nine planned for deployment by the end of this year, including Delair’s fixed-wing UX11 drone. With the Delair end-to-end solution, Eramet will be able to map and analyze around 300,000 hectares a year across all of its sites.

Eramet’s mining sites across New Caledonia, Gabon, Senegal and Indonesia offer a considerable source of topographical and geological data. Eramet is planning to build digital twins of its mines in order to control operations in real time, quickly schedule extraction projects, track ore inventories, ensure personnel safety, and manage the environmental impact of its sites.

Combining methods which are five times faster than traditional ways of working with centimetre-level accuracy in drone data collection, Eramet is able to optimize its mining operations, reduce costs and improve the safety of topographers. Using artificial intelligence-based analytics allows the Group to continually measure and update distances, surface areas, volumes and slopes. Interactive and scalable, the Delair.ai platform allows for data to be securely and easily exchanged, providing a convenient space to collaborate, communicate instructions, manage subcontractors, and store information on the Cloud. With this platform in place, it is now possible for Eramet to manage its mining operations in real time, in line with its strategic goals.