Drone News & Articles

In the construction industry, where jobs are fraught with cost overruns, missed deadlines, untended RFPs and more, drone consultants’ services are in high demand. Construction projects are bedeviled by many factors that can drive up costs, impact worker safety and spawn lawsuits between stakeholders. Drones have made definable differences in this space, since they decrease the need for lengthy visual inspections, reduce planning time, and identify problems by spotting anomalies. However, these efficiencies are just the beginning.

Part 107 of the FAA has allowed construction organizations and drone service providers to make a difference for companies of all sizes. However, it’s a difference that requires a construction company to define how drones can fit into their established processes, as well as for service providers to define how drone data can be transitioned into actionable information.

Build or Outsource?

Consultants who want to take advantage of opportunities created by the FAA’s Part 107 regulations and serve organizations in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector should understand the needs of this industry as a whole. Any workflow that can be made more efficient by a drone is likely to be of interest to AEC companies. They want results, though, and don’t always have a lot of time to learn new technology. That’s why many are outsourcing drone work to consultants.

While some AEC companies only need occasional drone services, others are doing a mix of implementing their own drone programs and hiring consultants.

“Some companies are interested in buying the hardware, buying the software, and building things out internally,” says Jeffrey Freund, Vice President at Firmatek, a data analytics firm using drones to service the construction and mining industries. “Other companies aren’t interested in taking that route and want to outsource everything or rent/lease the products. Companies can and should make whatever choice is best suited to them, but many are still trying to figure out the true value of having drones onsite. So a lot of companies are dabbling with the technology that way and having their own engineers and construction mangers become Part 107 certified internally.”

Creating a drone program can mean engineers and managers are subtracting energy from their day-to-day jobs though, which represents work billed at a much higher rate than operating a drone. For many, it’s better to sub out the work.

“These resources are usually better suited to help with the actual construction projects themselves rather than flying drones,” Freund told Commercial UAV News. “That’s where the benefit of a platform like PrecisionHawk’s pilot network comes in. Construction companies can scale across all their projects using the network and won’t have to be dependent on a few internal Part 107 certified pilots.”

Regardless of whether a company is building a drone program or outsourcing the work, the value drones are creating is real and definable. Through the use of sensors including telematics, drones can identify when a worker may be in trouble, on a blisteringly hot day, for example. Stakeholders who aren’t able to visit the worksite can inspect through drone-provided photos, and a drone inspection can find damage to a structure that was caused by weather, theft or vandalism. These differences factor into the “build or outsource” question for construction companies, but the answer ultimately depends on a myriad of factors.

“We’re finally getting to where we can fly and monitor projects on a weekly and monthly basis. Stakeholders are seeing how the technology can help when it comes to comparing the as-designed with the as-built, and how things are moving around on a site. These are things where you’re not going to know about the true benefit until some of these projects are completed,” says Freund.

Time is money in construction, which makes many firms risk-averse and not wanting to invest in new technology or consultants. Consultants can refute such stinginess with a quick sales primer on the benefits of drones, but all of it needs to be positioned in a way that underscores where and how the technology is creating value.

Serving AEC

Timesaving is just one aspect of the value created by drones. If a drone is in some way taking an employee out of a risky situation, it’s creating value with regard to safety. Making a hazardous workplace like a construction site safer, with better surveillance through a drone, positively affects a firm’s bottom line.

“Many of these larger construction sites have heavy machinery moving all over the place,” Freund continued. “There are slip and fall hazards all the time, and some companies have moved forward with using drone technology based on the safety value alone. The value of increasing safety, just from a time delay perspective, can be incredible. If someone can get a drone in the air and see what they needed to see or even more than they can by walking around a site, I think that’s a huge safety benefit.”

The benefits of the technology can extend across many stages of the project as well. After construction, drones support the insurance claim cycle. By easily slipping into spaces that are not simply or safely accessed by humans, drones are perfect for bridge and other high elevation inspections. On a construction site, a drone report can gauge the volume of an aggregates pile or check structure locations to determine if they are accurately placed.

They also can be used in pre-construction for terrain modeling; drone software can determine if terrain is buildable. When it is, drones can lay out roads and corners of buildings within centimeters of perfect accuracy, with the help of imagery captured by drone and converted into a 3D model.

Drone consultants hoping to most effectively serve the construction industry should understand the challenges of those in the industry. They should learn about issues like inventory management, maintenance costs and safety violations, which can oftentimes be spotted by a drone long before an inspector.

“There’s been a lot of skepticism of what 3D modeling can do in photogrammetry, and there really isn’t a perfect solution out there,” Freund concluded. “A lot of people expect a perfect 3D model that’s going to be like a building information model, and that’s really not the case. Users need to figure out how the data is going to give them an answer. A big misconception is that the answer is going to come out of the drone in a ready-made manner, but it requires a trained drone service provider to analyze the information and deliver true business intelligence.”

Consultants should also be ready and willing to interpret the data for clients. It’s one thing to get the raw data to the client, however a good consultant should go beyond offering just images and videos. Effectively leveraging drone technology depends on not just capturing data, but on what sort of data is being captured, and how that information is turned into actionable insights.

Flying Smart

While many drone operators provide video, photography or one type of sensing equipment on the drone they fly, there are a variety of other sensors available. Using them can enhance the services operators provide for construction clients.

LiDAR sensors augment pre-construction surveying and mapping with a 50 percent-time savings on data capture, compared to traditional techniques. Multispectral sensors can offer vegetation mapping on proposed sites, and volumetric calculations on aggregate material (which helps with materials planning and staging). Thermal sensors can detect hidden anomalies beneath surfaces and check for proper sealing of roofs and windows. And visual sensors can be used to measure the elevation and shape of terrain, calculate cut-fill volume, create models, and monitor job progress.

Pilots licensed under Part 107 have shown their ability to operate professionally, but there are safety considerations, too. Drone consultants must carry hull and liability insurance, for the equipment and for bodily injury. They should know which types of flights are permitted and which aren’t. Most construction sites require authorization be given to on-site personnel. Waivers allowing operations beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) allows pilots to capture more area in a single deployment, compared to flying a drone within line of sight; this option may be a smart move for the consultant, depending upon the project.

To enable AEC firms to avail themselves of a drone service, consultants should price simply. Make it easy for clients to engage your services at a scale and frequency they prefer. Give them value for the price they pay.

While one of the biggest misconceptions about drones in construction focuses on a drone replacing workers or equipment, it’s an illogical worry. Drones are merely an additional tool construction companies can use to gain actionable insights and make more informed decisions for their clients.

Tags: Drone Construction, FAA, Drone Business

But this is just the start. Goldman Sachs has predicted a US$100 billion market opportunity for drones between 2016 and 2020, with businesses and civil-governments expected to fuel a large chunk of the demand.

A big part of that includes real estate and construction, with the sectors expected to pump US$265 million and US$11.2 billion respectively into drone technology over the next few years, according to the global investment bank. Their ability to collect real-time images and submit work orders for building managers; carry out digital building walkthroughs for potential investors and tenants; conduct thermal imaging surveys to improve energy efficiency; and monitor construction progress at height, will only gather momentum.

Add to that they will completely reconfigure the way we design cities, releasing buildings from roads because “we’re probably going to be entering buildings from a roof or balcony,” says designer, Paul Priestman in the documentary Elevation.

However, the real game changer with all this is drones’ ability to collect data, says Adrienne Revai, Chief Operating Officer at JLL Australia.

“Drones are our digital eyes in the sky, and with clever software can turn visual data into insights that can help us create and manage places with more precision and efficiency than ever before, and with machine learning, provide solutions,” she says.

Drones make sense when the risk to humans is high, such as physical inspections in an elevator shaft, but the wide use of drones also comes with concerns around privacy, safety, cybersecurity and electronic waste, as outlined in the report Crossing the Threshold, produced by the RICS and corporate sustainability group Morphosis.

“Drones are just one aspect of the digitalization of real estate we are experiencing right now, transforming the way we manage and interact with cities and buildings, and we should embrace it,” Revai says.

Here are four ways the real estate sector, business and governments are embracing the possibilities of drones right now:

The drone capital of Australia

In Australia, the Queensland Government has removed a major policy barrier to the mainstream application of drones with a long-term strategy aimed at supporting advancements. 

The vision will ensure Queensland “is best positioned to make the most of drone technology and application, and has the agility to address new opportunities and challenges as they emerge,” the government says.

Part of its strategy is to inspect government-owned assets with drones. “It’s cheaper, safer, more efficient and accurate to send up a drone rather than a crew,” Adam Beck, executive director of the Smart Cities Council Australia New Zealand, tells the Property Council of Australia. 

“A drone’s camera can capture the condition of a building. We can then plug that video into artificial intelligence to run through analytics and algorithms. Machine learning can build up patterns of recognition, which means the drone can automatically identify issues and opportunities,” he says.

Landing pads on London rooftops

Startup company Skyport Drones is amassing a network of London rooftops upon which it will create landing sites for drones. 

Known as vertiports – named for the aircraft taking off and landing vertically – they will include facilities for recharging as well as loading and unloading. Vertiports are already in use in Switzerland by drones that carry medical supplies between laboratories and hospitals. 

Skysport has negotiated with landlords for the right to some 15 rooftops in London, which it wants to grow to 100 over the next 18 months. Once urban drone flights get the regulatory all-clear, the company expects the sites to be activated within a few years. 

London-based architect Barr Gazetas is working on the vertiport designs, with multi-storey car parks, office buildings and railway stations among the buildings that will host the “discreet, secure, environmentally-friendly” facilities. “Air taxis might feel like a futuristic invention, but they will soon be filling our skies," says Jon Eaglesham, Barr Gazetas director.

Drones in China go the extra mile 

Chinese online retail giant JD.com, and express delivery company SF Holding, have been sending packages by drone to remote areas that are unfeasible to access by road transport. 

JD.com has developed 40 different kinds of drones that can deliver goods on a large scale and address the issue of last-mile delivery, hampered in many cities by limited supply of land for logistics centres, road infrastructure and congestion. 

The venture, which leverages China’s regulation, infrastructure, and the world’s biggest e-commerce market, plans to escalate its operations to include large autonomous planes taking off from airports to ferry bulky goods between warehouses, and even cargo loads to distribution centres in rural locations, where 590 million people reside. 

Self-repairing cities

Street works are a frequent frustration for people living in urban environments around the world, but an initiative in the UK aims to use robots to banish the pain by 2050. The Self-Repairing Cities initiative – lead by UK universities Leeds, University College London, Birmingham and Southampton – will design robots to identify, diagnose and repair street-works using three methods.

First is “Perch and Repair,” whereby drones will perform repair tasks such as fixing street lights. Second is “Perceive and Patch,” with swarms of flying vehicles carrying out autonomous inspections, diagnostics, and repair, or even preventing highway defects such as potholes using drones mounted with 3D printers to identify and fill cracks in roads before they expand. 

Third is “Fire and Forget”: hybrid robots will be designed to operate indefinitely within live utility pipes, performing inspection, repair, metering and reporting tasks. 

With this project Leeds City Council aims to be the first city in the world that is fully maintained autonomously by 2035.

Tags: Drone Photography, Queensland Drones, Real Estate

Dr. Chris Walach, executive and senior director of the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems, poses with a Yuneec Q500 4K quadcopter at his office in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016. Richard Brian/Las Vegas Review-Journal Follow

The Governor’s Office of Economic Development’s drone group has formed an unlikely partnership to help advance the unmanned aerial systems industry: the largest Polish coking coal-producing company in the European Union. According to the partners, this collaboration could bring innovations in space mining.

The Nevada Institute for Autonomous System, which works to expand Nevada’s drone industry, announced that it has signed a letter of intent with Polish company JSW SA, which makes the main ingredient for steel and has a $2.5 billion market capitalization.

Chris Walach, executive and senior director of the institute, said the institute and JSW SA intend to create the first joint Autonomous Systems Test Center that is focused on mining safety, public safety and technology that could be used to mine areas on the moon, Mars or asteroids.

“All of the technology that could be deployed on another planet is dual purpose and could be deployed here,” Walach said.

The test center would have locations in Poland and Nevada, he said, and more details will be revealed after a second trip to Poland this September.

The partnership will open economic development opportunities for small businesses within the state, he said.

“More companies (will be) interested in repositioning here and opening a subsidiary in Nevada,” Walach said.

Representatives from NIAS visited JSW SA’s mining sites during a trip to Poland last week, where they examined how JSW uses autonomous systems to aid production.

A research-and-development division of the Polish company engineers aerial drones and works to advance the Polish unmanned traffic management system, a system created to manage drone traffic.

The idea behind Agriculture and Space Day was to make sure everyone appreciated just how much space technologies contributed to the agriculture sector. The setting was a field of grass in the back garden of the historic natural science museum, a surprisingly quiet space in the heart of Brussels, dominated by the looming glass and steel European Parliament building.

Europe’s flagship space program, Galileo, always has been advertised by the EU as a boon to farmers, enabling precision agriculture practices that save time, money and resources. Galileo’s satellite navigation signals are also used by unmanned aircraft, which can study fields from above to help trouble shoot problems and fine-tune the amount of fertilizer and water that should be used.

“All around the world, drone service providers deliver image acquisition to farmers,” said Tamme Van Der Wal, a partner at AeroVision B.V. That imagery, he said, can be done in natural color, which supports visual recognition, counting plants or mapping. Sensors detecting red/infrared reflectance enable vegetation indexing and thermal mapping and a better understanding of how temperature is related to evapotranspiration. Unmanned aircraft are also able to do 3-D imaging that captures the land’s contours for mapping.

“Other sensors are flown too, but only in experimental use, such as GNSS reflectometry systems for soil moisture, or LiDAR for crop height, etcetera,” he said.

There are now many different companies providing drone services, Van Der Wal said, comprising two main groups: “First, there are the drone service companies, basically pilots making a business out of their personal capabilities. And then there are the agricultural service companies that are expanding their offerings to include drone imagery acquisition. These are people like farming contractors, farm extension services, advisory companies and supply services.”

Van Der Wal said he believes there is a lot of potential value in drone-based crop monitoring, but the costs must be aligned with the benefits: “Currently, costs are very much related to the pilot and restrictive regulations and are quite high compared to the benefit to the farmer. So at this moment, I would say it is not yet a very broad market, but more a niche market, like many innovations. However, the potential can be enormous when extended line of sight is approved or even BVLOS [beyond visual line of sight] or autonomous flights.”

Regulation on the Horizon

“It’s not only a technology thing but also a legal thing,” Van Der Wal said. “Drones, of course, are very much subject to regulations nowadays. We cannot fly further than line of sight, for example, as I said. We are, of course, definitely paying attention to what’s happening with the European drone regulation. We are absolutely on top of it. We are very excited about what EASA (the European Aviation Safety Agency) is now promoting with the specific scenarios.”

EASA has been very much involved in the drafting of the EU’s soon-to-be-adopted drone regulation. Under the envisaged scheme, the creation of so-called ‘standard scenarios’ for European drone operations will allow a level of automation in the flight authorization process. The idea is to have a pre-established risk assessment ready for certain types of operations, so it’s not necessary to do a long and drawn-out assessment for every drone mission.

“With these scenarios, if you are able to get an agricultural scenario prepared, then we can say: “Listen, line-of-sight is just too short for most of these fields,” Van Der Wal said. “I’m not talking about the Netherlands and Belgium, these are small countries. But you go to France and Germany, with line of sight you do not even cover a quarter of your fields. The new technology will be able to do it. With this technology we can easily fly the whole field without interfering with anything else, and that would be the great jump forward. So, yes, 2019 I think is the year they’re going to have this new European regulation. If that comes through—I hope as soon as possible—we can convince the regulators and this agricultural scenario will roll out. And then we’ll be able to make major progress.”

Having said all that, Van Der Wal and partners are not waiting around for new regulations. His new startup, BIOSCOPE, is delivering imagery by integrating more expensive drone monitoring with less expensive satellite monitoring. The company uses satellites whenever possible and drones when needed.

“With this combination,” Van Der Wal said, “we achieve an affordable, reliable data service to farmers, providing them with fresh imagery throughout the growing season.”

Other viable business cases exist in niche markets, he said. For instance, plant breeders are using drones to closely monitor experimental plots, and agricultural insurance companies use them to carry out damage assessment. So there is money to be made now for drone operators in the agriculture sector in addition to the untapped potential that regulatory advances will open up.

And then there are those farmers who want to take things into their own hands, as has been their custom for untold thousands of years.

(Agri)Cultural Gap

The event in Brussels was an interesting assemblage of politicians, bureaucrats, consultants and real-life, hands-on workers of the land.

One unnamed policy type wanted to know if there wasn’t a mismatch somewhere: “Here we’re speaking about a sophisticated technology,” they said. “Is there a cultural barrier for farmers to get into these technologies?”

“Yes and no,” Van Der Wal said. “These machines here (pointing to a very big and very high-tech tractor some yards away which, by the way, can be operated in ‘unmanned’ mode) are full of advanced technologies, but farmers know very well how to use them. The problem is that we, as scientists and engineers, we have to make our new technologies understandable to the farmer. So I would say that there is a gap, but it’s more on our side than on their side.”

Max Schulman, an arable farmer from Finland, has been working with unmanned technology for a number of years.

“We started already around five years ago,” Schulman said, “first as just a fun thing, with drones on the farm, just to look at the crops at different times during the growing season and also during the off season—to learn and to see how

nature actually affects the fields when you’re looking at the crops, but also at how water was running after rains, where maybe we should put up certain buffer zones, and so on. Simple, easy things. Of course we’re doing more advanced things now, to be more precise and more efficient, and this is helping us to improve productivity.”

The new technologies are having an impact in that they are making the business more attractive to the next generation of farmers, Schulman said.

“It is more interesting to young people now. Drones have become an important part of this process in recent years. We’ve always had the big equipment,” he said, indicating the high-tech tractor. “Now we’re getting to the smaller equipment that today is even more powerful.”

Drone expert Van Der Wal said many farmers like Schulman will not be interested in the technical side of things per se, including things like location-specific signals. “What they really want to know is what they have to do with the information,” he said. “They need to use it. If they are able to use it they will invest in it. That means the software, all these new packages now coming into the market that absorb our data and translate it into required actions, that’s really important too.”

Government Business

Drones also are being used to calculate field sizes for subsidy purposes. Today, when a farmer says he has five hectares to declare, what he’s done is gone out with a GNSS receiver and walked around the perimeter of the property. Then there is the verification process, which involves an inspector coming out to make sure the farmer’s measurements are accurate. It’s a time and labor intensive process, compared to what could be done using drones.

“One of the more cumbersome things is when you have to control the area of your farm,” Van Der Wal said, “and there have been some tests with control officers using a drone. With stereo photography we can easily measure the size of the field. We can even see under the trees. With satellite photos we can only look from above.

“What I think would be interesting is if we could give the farmer a drone or let them use their own drone to measure the field. Then they submit that to the government. With Galileo you have the integrity function so we know it’s true. No further verification is needed.”

It sounds straightforward, but drone use in this way has not, so to speak, taken off. Not yet, at least. Van Der Wal said a lot of that has to do with the people involved. “The point is the farmer, like the controller, has a specific task and background. They are used to working the way they work. And now they have to learn a new way and even how to fly a drone. It takes time.”

Copa-Cogeca spokesperson Stephen Weller said there are other obstacles to drones being used to verify field sizes: “You have the question of price. Then there is interoperability with the systems already being used by the control agencies. They need time to learn and gain experience. You’ve got to test this new solution, to see if it’s accurate, and you need to understand which methods you’re going to need to use to verify the results.”

The Galician government, Weller said, has launched a public tender to do exactly this. “The first results will be ready by early next year. They also need to determine which sensors and resolution are the most adequate for the job.”

The value of such operations does seem pretty obvious. The market is as vast as the fields of France and Germany, and all the rest. Whoever gets there first stands to make a bundle, or is that a sheaf?

No Small-Time Players 

For its part, Copa-Cogeca expresses particular apprehension over the plight of Europe’s small farmers, for most of whom survival itself requires at the very least joining a cooperative. Much like in manufacturing, it’s these small and medium sized concerns that play an important role in things like innovation and, in the agriculture sector, maintaining biodiversity. But they also face the greatest challenges.

“I don’t have statistics, Weller said, “but when it comes to drones being used by small farmers, we know there is a huge way to go forward. We heard from Max Schulman, who uses them. I also know that Terrena and other agri-cooperatives, possibly Gaia (Gaia Epicheirein), offer drone services to its members as a complement to satellite maps.”

In addition to the cooperatives, contractual companies do provide drone services. It is more cost-effective and “more professional” this way, Weller said, as opposed to farmers just doing it themselves. “On top of the hardware, the drone, you also need the software, and there’s maintenance and piloting skills and licenses. All this is necessary to be able to extract and process the data.”

One thing is certain—the market for drones and drone services in agriculture is not going away. Some farmers might be a little shy, but they won’t shy away forever, not if the value is clear, Schulman said, “Everybody says; ‘Do these guys know how to use this technology?’ I can tell you one thing—we know how to use the technologies. We use them every day, from the biggest combines and tractors down to the smallest sensor technologies. Every farm has its own choice, its own system, how they do it, so you will never find a one-size-fits-all solution for all the farms. Give us a choice of solutions, lift it up, make it easy to use and accessible and we’ll use it.”

Big Data – The Business Model

Copa-Cogeca General Secretary Pekka Pesonen provided a big vision for agriculture based on, you guessed it, Big Data.

“New technologies such as GNSS promise to provide European farming with the tools to compete in dynamic markets,” Pesonen said. “The technological and digital transformation of agriculture is no longer a discussion for the future. Big Data, provided by precision farming methods, optimizes the use and marketing of related tools, facilitating sales and improving the competitiveness of EU farming.”

Though Pesonen referred primarily to satellite-generated data, his argument applies equally to drone-generated information.

“These technologies improve resource efficiency and optimize the use of fertilizer, seeds, plant protection products, water and machinery, improving the financial bottom line,” he said. “Data can be safely shared between industry and authorities to help map farm land and track environmental initiatives accurately, simplifying regulatory oversight and making it more efficient, modern and fair.”

And making the agriculture sector another huge target for interests ready to step in and provide the ever more powerful data-based information services that we all know are just around the corner.

Tags: Agriculture, Drone Spraying

Sounds like the Game of Thrones crew is absolutely willing to go to extreme measures to prevent season 8 spoilers.

According to Sophie Turner—who plays Sansa Stark on the HBO drama—the production team deployed “drone killers” to disable any camera drones attempting to capture footage of the show’s sets during filming for the final season.

“If a drone flies above sets, there’s a thing that can kill the drones, which is really cool,” she told Entertainment Weekly during an appearance at New York Comic-Con. “It creates a field around it and the drones just drop. It’s very X-Men.

However, these so-called “drone killers” are special electronic devices that are typically used by police to force drones to the ground in the event of an emergency, not keep fans from learning the fate of Jon Snow.

“The purpose is primarily for emergency situations,” Oceanside police Lt. Aaron Doyle told the Los Angeles Times. “It won’t be used when someone complains about a neighbor flying a drone. It’s pretty much for a life-or-death situation, to save lives.”

Director andy Fackrell has launched a guardian, a 90-second film that highlights that surprising role of drone technology in the war against poaching. produced for Los Angeles–based charity over and above Africa, the all-drone shot movie presents a series of swooping aerial shots of animal groups, each titled with the respective collective nouns – a pride of lions, a wobble of ostrich, an implausibility of gnu, etc. – before tracking ‘a gang’ of poachers on the drone’s night vision camera.

'A guardian' film shows how drone technology can save animal lives in Africa

‘it’s a slaughter,’ mentions Over And Above Africa founder Kerry David, ‘every day is a tech-war between heavily armed, well organized, skilled poachers and our courageous, but often ill-equipped rangers – dropping our guard can mean the loss of whole herds.’ the charity, which raises funds to support people and organizations in Africa who are actively preventing extinction, has collaborated with Fackrell to produce ‘a guardian’, the film which leads its initiative to supply drones to game reserves and help them win the war against poaching.

A recent report states that 83% of wild mammals have been lost to human civilization; yet we make up just 0.01% of the earth’s biomass. with African elephant numbers dropping 9% per year, it’s a battle that has become a crisis, starkly evidenced by the slaughter of 90 elephants over the last two months in Botswana. according to a pioneering group of conservationists, entrepreneurs and researchers called air shepherd, drone surveillance is proving to be a savior for Africa's endangered animal groups, increasing their survival chances by up to 80%. 

'a guardian' film shows how drone technology can save animal lives in Africa

Coining the collective noun for a group of drones as ‘a guardian’, the film uses other nouns in the form of text to romance the beauty of animal groups across Africa, and at the same time highlight their vulnerability to poaching gangs. a guardian is made by an international team of creatives led by former wieden+kennedy, 180 Amsterdam and ddb veteran, Andy Fackrell, who has recently left LA to return to Amsterdam. the film is thoughtfully directed by another ex-180 Amsterdam creative, sam Coleman at giant films in cape town.

 Tags: Conservation, Aerial Photography, Drone Technology

Energy companies need to monitor thousands of miles of pipelines, tank farms, transmission lines and other assets in order to determine how and when maintenance activities need to be performed. The sheer size and scope of managing this infrastructure means that the ability to automate tasks related to performing such inspections will create incredible efficiencies. This is one reason why the energy sector as a whole is quickly adopting drones.

With the energy sector representing basically a recession-proof market and renewable energy sources capturing a fast-growing share of that market, opportunities for technological advancement and the adoption of drones will undoubtedly grow. By using Part 107 to their advantage, drone consultants can capitalize on these regulation changes, just as they have in other sectors like agriculture.

Even smaller, locally based drone consultants can take advantage of the upcoming boom in drones in energy/utilities. Whether that work is related to inspecting wind farms, solar farms, electrical distribution lines or a variety of other tasks, drones are making more sense to decision-makers in the energy sector, but they’re doing so in a variety of ways that directly and indirectly impact the bottom line.

A Growing Market

The growing market for drone consultants’ services in energy is immense. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the market of drone-powered solutions in the world’s power and utilities sector is worth $9.46 billion. Other research underscores how important those services are to the world economy. A recent study by Guinn Partners found that in 2017, infrastructure and utility inspections made up more than half of all commercial drone activity.

Strict regulations in the energy sector are just part of the reason for this growing drone market, as many struggle when it comes to determining how new technology can be incorporated into established procedures. Antiquated oil, gas and electrical systems that lack 3D models also play a part, which is one of the reasons that so-called Digital Twin modeling is easing workflows in energy. Creating a virtual representation of a physical asset allows energy stakeholders to reconsider their inspection and maintenance activities in an entirely new light.

Energy company assets and equipment need regular inspection, though it’s time-consuming, costly and sometimes dangerous when performed by workers traveling to distant sites. Drones shorten the time and costs associated with inspections and remove employees from hazardous situations in times of critical need.

Consider solar energy facilities, which often contain thousands of panels. Having required inspections completed by an employee can be an arduous and time-consuming process. Inspecting that same facility with a drone equipped with a photovoltaic sensor to see if the panels are operating at optimum efficiency is comparatively simple, and sending out a drone with the right software to capture and analyze the data is time efficient.

Using drones and associated software, operators can easily convert data into 2D or 3D models and actionable information for various areas including right-of-way monitoring. This automation simplifies processes, reducing costs for maintaining assets including pipelines and power lines. These savings are multiplied when flying beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS).

Drones are also helping with wind turbine and tower inspection by reducing inspection time. The impact on worker safety is also evident, as the technology makes climbs less frequent. The need for inspections of such facilities will undoubtedly increase since the number of such facilities will grow with increasing investments in renewable energy and the need for wireless connectivity. This growth will, in turn, drive the technology and processes requirements to properly maintain these facilities.

The Scope of the Energy Sector

The Global Wind Energy Council estimates there were more than 341,000 wind turbines worldwide in 2016, according to a recent white paper by Skylogic Research. “Unidentified defects can result in an unexpected catastrophic failure, causing expensive repairs, extended downtime, and associated revenue loss. Revenue losses alone from unexpected catastrophic failures can be as high as $50,000 per turbine.”

That pain point is another reason why in the near future, energy executives will embrace drone consultants who can serve energy and utilities. Energy company stockholders want increased profits, reduced risk, and few production stoppages (if any), all of which can be directly enabled and delivered with the help of drones. The energy market is great and the need to deliver these kinds of inspection services without a hassle and with reasonable fees even greater.

When considering energy and utilities, one must also factor in the future effect of laws meant to lower carbon emissions. Such legislation will make the need to optimize the performance of an energy company’s assets ever greater. Drones will continue to help companies get the most out of their assets, by pinpointing problems and reducing waste. Through the use of solar photovoltaics monitoring, drones are identifying issues like hot spots, dead zones and debris, while diminishing the need for manual inspections.

Drones also are becoming adept at inspecting high-transmission electrical lines, which are often in remote places where a serious injury can result in death due to the remoteness of the locale. Removing the need for all but the most essential climbs on such structures decreases risk. All of these efficiencies are driving the desire of energy companies to embrace and utilize drone technology, but exactly how they’re doing so depends on a number of factors.

Providing Value Right Now

Decisions for energy companies when it comes to adopting drone technology are typically related to creating their own drone program or utilizing service providers. But are utility companies taking an “either/or” approach when it comes to these options?

“Companies are really taking a hybrid approach,” says Patrick Lohman, Vice-President of Energy for PrecisionHawk. “There are a lot of benefits to internalizing some of that work. A lot of these government-regulated utilities like to internalize things, so they can benefit on the capitalization side.”

Ultimately, it’s about selling value and allowing an energy company to see and understand what’s going to work best for their organization and established process.

“One of the main ways that service providers can provide value right now to electric utilities across the board is by showing they have the equipment, are local and are licensed,” Lohman continued. “The fact that someone could only incur driving costs to provide the work is a big component to the value being there.”

Serving the energy market is also a question of being aware of its specific needs. Drone consultants should understand the energy market’s issues, such as on-site safety, equipment maintenance and security requirements.

Consultants also should be prepared to provide more than static images and fly-over videos to clients. Instead, deliver a full package, including data analysis. By providing high-resolution, repeatable and frequent data collection, consultants will help customers with asset inventory and management.

Many drone consultants offer video, photography or one type of sensing equipment on the drone they fly, but other sensors are available. By using LiDAR, a drone operator can inspect powerlines for increased sag and encroachment from vegetation. Thermal sensors can detect hot spots or broken insulators, and chemical and energy discharge can be spotted with UV sensors to locate problems. PrecisionHawk’s acquisition of InspecTools in order to help provide regular, cost-effective inspections will also help professionals in this sector create value.

In some cases, the go-to operators working for a drone consultant serving an energy company can become almost indispensable to the firm. These close relationships can lead to other opportunities.

“We are also seeing small contractors transition from an external service provider to becoming an internal hire for these utilities since they have already proven they can perform well and have a familiarity with the company’s systems,” Lohman told Commercial UAV News. “For instance, we’ve been tasked with quite a few service opportunities in the electric space. A company’s plan often is to internalize some of the programs they’re currently externalizing with service providers as it gets more mature.”

Consultants should remember to price simply and appropriately. Make it easy for clients to engage your services at a scale they prefer. Especially in the energy sector where regulations require sophisticated operations, simple pricing can be a deciding factor in landing a client or keeping one long-term. Exactly how these relationships begin and develop are issues that service providers need to consider for energy clients.

“If you’re going to contract directly with a large energy utility company, they’re going to have a lot of very strict standards that you need to follow,” Lohman concluded. “They’re going to ask you for what’s basically a full-blown safety program, so one consideration for a small service provider is to weigh the benefits of whether or not they should be investing in that full-blown safety program because doing so is not cheap. Energy is a different ballgame, and there are a lot of strict standards that you need to swim through in order to come up with the best plan as far as how you want to run your drone service business.”

Tags: Drone Business, Small Business, Utilities

For the first time in US history, a commercial drone equipped with a parachute safety system has been permitted to fly over people, with the flight taking place at a football game in North Dakota on the weekend.

Drone safety solutions company ParaZero (ASX: PRZ) today announced its SafeAir System was used on a DJI Phantom 4 being controlled by North Dakota drone operator Botlink.

The drone performed multiple flights over crowds gathered in the FargoDome’s parking lots for the tailgating event prior to the North Dakota State University vs South Dakota State football game on Saturday.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted a waiver for Part 107, which prohibits commercial unmanned aviation systems (UAS) from flying over unprotected people.

According to ParaZero chief executive Eden Attias, the “handful” of existing waivers for flights over people have either been for closed-set operations or for very lightweight and sometimes frangible UAS.

“This waiver opens the gates for safe flight over people with larger, more advanced UAS that can carry more sophisticated payloads and cameras,” he said.

Safety solution

While the FAA’s priority is public safety, its Part 107 limitation has inhibited the growth of the UAS industry as it blocks most operations in urban environments as well as some operations in rural areas.

According to Attias, ParaZero’s parachute system was a “major acceptance point of the waiver”.

The SafeAir system includes a fully autonomous triggering system that deploys quickly and reliably without being dependent on the operator’s response time.

Once the parachute is deployed, the system stops the spinning motors to avoid entanglement with the parachute cords and reduces the risk of laceration injuries to people on the ground.

Potential applications

Drone operator Botlink performed the flights to gather real-time footage for local law enforcement as well as for generating media content as part of the UAS Integration Pilot Program.

According to Attias, the use of the drone at a football game shows the massive opportunity for the use of UAS in commercial environments “whether for law enforcement, media applications, filming, live coverage of sporting events and more”.

“Our goal is to enable the fast growing UAS industry to reach its full potential by opening up the skies for business,” he said, adding that the company was eager to see additional waivers for flights over people in the future.

Recent ASX debut

ParaZero was founded in Israel in 2014 and debuted on the Australian Securities Exchange in June this year after raising $5 million at $0.20 per share.

The company planned to spend about $1.7 million of the cash raised as part of its listing on research and development projects and about $1.4 million on sales and marketing.

Less than a month after listing, it announced the delivery of first orders of its SafeAir M200 drone safety system for retailers and distributors in both Australia and the US.

In August, North Dakota’s department of transportation began testing ParaZero’s systems under the first phase of the UAS Integration Pilot Program.

ParaZero stock soared 21.43% to $0.17 on today’s news by midday trade.

Tags: Drone Photography, Event Safety, Drones in Sports

There’s finally some clarity on the use of drones in India, and the real-estate industry is among those waiting for the December norms to kick in.

Drones have considerable potential as a marketing tool, as well as for supervision of under-construction sites in the real estate industry. Aerial photography and videos will be able to provide precise details of a space to potential buyers.

“They can also be used to keep a schedule on track and reduce downtime, ensuring efficiency of workers onsite. Detailed shots taken from a drone can keep project managers and promoters up-to-date on progress, especially in large construction sites like townships, highways and airports,” says Devang Varma, director of Omkar Realtors.

It’s an exciting idea for developers because CAD drawings and graphic simulations can now be replaced by real, on-site visuals; buyers can track their building as it comes up.

“Drones are invaluable when it comes to 3D imagery and virtual walkthroughs, which can help buyers of residential and commercial real estate make more informed decisions,” says Anuj Puri, chairman of Anarock Property Consultants. “Drones have already seen wide-scale adoption for marketing purposes in Europe and America. In India, drone-based property marketing has been nascent and can now be expected to grow.”

What we are about to experience is a complete transformation of how real estate projects are marketed, says Amit Wadhwani, managing director at Sai Estate Consultants. “So far, buyer involvement in the building process has been relatively low. They could have only a vague understanding of what their future home would look like. With the new drone policy, it will now be possible for buyers see, for instance, the exact distance between two buildings, existing infrastructures, amenities and everything else.”

Drone technology in marketing will allow consumers to create an emotional connect with the property. “Instead of still photographs and blueprints, drone videos will let the buyer experience the project, access minute details of layout and design. Aerial photos will capture more too,” says Manoj Asrani, first executive at Brick Asset, real estate consultants.

Effective photography is one of the key elements in the selling process, Asrani adds. “It is more impactful to show a bird’s eye view of a property and allow potential buyers to take a 3D tour of the neighbourhood as well.”

The impact isn’t going to be restricted to real-estate marketing but also influence the construction process. Construction activity can be measured and surveyed more comprehensively and accurately. “Going ahead, we believe drones will play a key role in 3D mapping, surveillance of projects etc,” says Prasoon Chauhan, CEO at HomeKraft, a real estate development company. “Drones can help in quality-control and inspection on site. When it comes to planning, the technology has helped immensely to conceptualise what development is going to be, because more often it is difficult to do so just from a set of plans,” says Amit Ruparel, MD of Ruparel Realty.

Safety and workflow surveys, digital photography and documentation, monitoring and improving worker safety will get a boost too. “The data collected using drones can also be used to compare original plans with the ongoing construction work to show customers how a site is progressing” adds Ashish Shah, chief operating officer at Radius Developers.

The buyer’s expectations are on the rise and the use of drone technology is going to aid the developers and builders to meet them in a more creative and rewarding way, says Wadhwani. “We believe it won’t be long before potential buyers are asking for drone videos instead of brochures.”

Tags: Drone Photography, Real Estate Drones, Beginner Drones

Mining and energy giant BHP Billiton is trialing the use of drones to speed up its port operations. The firm intends to deploy small unmanned aerial vehicles to take draft readings and inspect holds on giant bulkers as they wait to load rather than dispatching human inspectors for the purpose. 

BHP VP of marketing freight, Rashpal Bhatti, is a prominent technological evangelist in shipping, and he believes that information collected by drones will one day feed into the BHP-supplied tablets that bulker captains use at BHP terminals. “All of our chartered ships receive a tablet when they berth. And on the tablet they can read the tension of the mooring line which has major safety benefits," Bhatti says. "It’s all a bit futuristic but that is the direction we are going.’’

BHP charters about 1,500 dry bulk voyages for 300 million tonnes of cargo every year, giving it an outsize position in the market. The volume of its business means that small optimizations in each loading process - like reducing inspection times - could translate into large savings. 

“The hold inspection process involves ships which have five to nine holds which a person checks by climbing down ladders. The inspector has to be physically fit, use fall protection, and carry [an oxygen meter] to make sure there is enough air in the hold. And it takes a lot of time,’’ Bhatti said. BHP expects that inspecting a ship's holds using drones instead could cut the time required by as much as three quarters. In addition, Bhatti suggests that drone-mounted sensors could detect things that humans could not, like "cracks or other specific parameters that cannot be seen with the naked eye.’’

Drone-based inspections have also been trialed by class societies and third-party contractors, especially in the offshore sector, where they can greatly simplify the process of checking on complex rig structures. In the ports sector, Maersk's APM Terminals division recently deployed drones for safety and security monitoring at two inland terminals in Chile, where they keep tabs on facility operations and watch out for unsafe behavior. Maersk says the trial shows strong potential and drones are likely to make an appearance at other APM sites as well. 

BHP already has extensive experience with drones in its shoreside operations. It uses aerial drones at its coal mines in Queensland, Australia for aerial site surveys; blast zone safety checks; traffic monitoring; and stockpile measurement. It also deploys drones in its oil and gas processing facilities for inspections. 

Drones are not the end point of Rashpal Bhatti's vision for change in the maritime industry: he is also a noted supporter of autonomous vessel technology. "Safe and efficient autonomous vessels carrying BHP cargo, powered by BHP [natural] gas, is our vision for the future of dry bulk shipping. We believe that future could manifest within a decade," Bhatti announced last year.

Tags: Aerial Photography, Drone Inspection, Port Operations