![]() ![]() To inspection the status of these jobs, a helicopter would be typically be found hovering above the job site with an onboard photographer taking photos and videos. A common example of this is a drilling platform for oil and gas extraction in an offshore site. Offshore oil and gas constructionĪny type of large-scale offshore work is difficult to inspect on account of the site’s remote location. With programmable drones, they can even fly along predetermined flight paths with minimal operator intervention. Regular drone inspections can help solar farms ensure that a good portion of their solar panels is in good working conditions. This is a typical sign of a damaged solar panel.Īs with any energy provider, reliability is a critical metric of a solar farm. With a thermal camera, drones can simply fly over the whole breadth of the solar farm to look for panels with unusual heat buildup. Maintenance of solar farms is also difficult considering that one farm can have thousands of individual solar panels spread across a very wide area.įor many solar farms around the world, drones have become the best solution to facilitate maintenance and inspection needs. The large footprint of these “solar farms” make real estate costs a significant part of its expenses. One of the challenges in solar energy is that it needs a lot of land, typically in the range of hundreds of acres. They have been placed at the forefront of this campaign in the last couple of years because of advances in photovoltaic technology, making solar energy easier to implement with less capital and lower risk. Solar farms play a huge role in the global energy transition from fossil fuel-derived to more renewable sources. These applications have ranged from using drones to spray water and reduce suspended dust particles to using drones as a more environment-friendly option for parcel delivery. This allows for faster leak detection, which means that ground crews can be instantly deployed to address them.Īside from their value in inspection, drones have also been used in various cities to actively reduce air pollution. Instead of emission sensors, the drones used by this company have been equipped with infrared to detect if there are any leaks in their surface facilities. This has allowed them to gather more comprehensive data for the concentration of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in the air, thus allowing them to better comply with federal air quality standards.Ī similar effort has been undertaken by Anadarko Petroleum, which is the largest oil and gas producer in Colorado. In Wyoming, natural gas producer Jonah Energy has started using drones with mounted emission sensors to complement their fixed-location air pollution detection stations. In this regard, drones help not only in the monitoring of air pollution levels but also in actively reducing them. Air qualityĪir pollution continues to be a growing problem around the world, particularly in cities with a lot of vehicular traffic and industrial manufacturing facilities. However, the benefit of using a drone as opposed to a helicopter far outweigh the drawbacks. There are still a few challenges to overcome when doing power line inspection via drones, such as the need to maintain visual line of sight and the electromagnetic interference that live power lines generate. They can also be equipped with a customized payload like thermal cameras or powerful zoom lenses to make checking for damaged power lines easier. Drones can fly quickly, be deployed from just about any take-off spot, and do not expose a single person to any hazard when done correctly. Having people come up close and personal with power lines to check for damage is also a very dangerous proposition, especially if you’re assuming that some of the power lines are damaged.ĭrones offer just about all the advantages to counteract these difficulties. The challenge of inspecting power lines is that they typically stretch for hundreds of miles. Considering how critical power lines are as an infrastructure, it is essential that inspection of them be done according to maintenance schedules or in the aftermath of a natural disaster like an earthquake or typhoon. Inspection of power lines has become a prevalent field for drones in the past couple of years. ![]() Just how significantly has drone technology affected the aerial inspection industry? To help you get a sense of the size of this drone application, we have come up with a list of the many ways in which drones are used to inspect everything from farms to industrial equipment. These benefits have made drones a very useful inspection tool for several industries, thus also providing professional opportunities for drone pilots. They are smaller, cheaper, easier to manipulate, quicker to deploy, and can get into spaces that larger aircraft cannot. Compared to manned aircraft, drones have quite the laundry list of advantages. ![]()
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