Drones at Work

Hepta Airborne scanned kilometres of overhead power lines – infrastructure inspection digitiser – to detect defects, which project partner Järvi-Suomen Energia created by felling trees on the lines to mimic the storm damage that occurs during heavy winds.  LiDAR detection speeds up locating and eliminating damage on overhead powerlines during storms and low-light situations. The project results will help shorten electricity outages and improve power service for homeowners in Finland's lake district and other challenging terrain areas in the Nordics and elsewhere.  Power outages on middle voltage grids cause thousands of people to lose electricity in their homes during the

Charles Brooks slung his pick-axe into the soil. It was a simple job, levelling some ground for landscaping. (He’s also pretty handy with an enterprise drone, and we’ll get to that shortly.) It felt good. That’s because it wasn’t just any pick-axe, and it wasn’t just any earth. That tool, now sporting a new hickory handle, had first been in the hands of his grandfather. It had been handed down, over many decades, until it had reached Charles. It’s already been in the hands of one of his sons, currently aged 9 and 11. That makes four generations who have

Flyability has launched a first-of-its-kind software called Inspector 3.0 that allows inspectors to pinpoint the location of defects discovered during inspections. Flyability, a provider of solutions for remote internal inspections, is excited to announce the launch of new software that allows inspectors to precisely locate the defects they find during inspections performed with the Elios 2. Following a successful beta testing phase that included over 150 users, Inspector 3.0 is now available for all Elios 2 users. “Inspector 3.0 represents a big step forward in our greater mission to remove the need for humans to enter confined spaces in the

Rohit Gupta, Head of Products and Resources, Europe, Cognizant For some years now, drone technology has been billed as the next big thing. For many, the main associations which spring to mind when thinking about the technology are their uses in military defence, surveillance, awe-inspiring landscape photography and wedding videos. In the UK, we have also experienced the negative side effects of the technology, including the disruption caused at Gatwick and Heathrow airports. Despite these incidents, drones have huge potential for businesses across many industries, including retail, logistics and healthcare. McKinsey recently investigated how the technology could be used for

UAV operator Cyberhawk has secureda five-year contract with a major LNG producer in the Middle East for the provision of drone inspection, surveying and data visualisation services. The contract will see Cyberhawk focus on collecting engineering-grade inspection data from oil and gas assets in the Middle East, onshore and offshore, which will be delivered as detailed inspection reports via Cyberhawk’s drone data visualisation software, iHawk. Established in 2014, iHawk allows asset teams to view up-to-date, visual data securely in the cloud. The contract with the state-owned oil and gas company was secured by Manweir LLC, Cyberhawk’s local partner, which is

Drone service provider SkySkopes says that new uses for UAVs are being discovered at an increased rate since Covid-19 broke out

Ardenna has confirmed the general availability of Rail-Inspector, its cloud-based software that accurately processes and analyses imagery captured during drone surveys.

The drone uses GPS and RFID technology to identify and save the exact position of all vehicles it flew over.

Rantizo has announced it is now approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for operation of multiple drone swarms nationwide. The waiver allows for the safe operation of three autonomous drone sprayers by a single pilot and one visual observer. The firm’s CEO, Michael Ott, said: “Our vision is to Fly & Apply on large areas with autonomous drone sprayers, so swarming is a critical component. Labor shortages in agriculture are a known and widely discussed topic. “With our ability to now fly three drones at once, we are moving closer and closer to full autonomy of operation. That autonomy

The global framework contract was awarded by an unnamed Scandinavian telecommunications company.