UK Finds Another Use for Autonomous Drones, and It’s Not What You Expect

Errol Villorente, Tech Times 05 July 2022, 02:07 pm

The National Grid Electrical Transmission (NGET) in the United Kingdom is now working on deploying autonomous drones powered by artificial intelligence to inspect the country's energy assets. The trials to fully automate the corrosion inspection of electricity transmission pylons have already commenced.

UK National Grid, AI Start-ups Work Together to Ease Asset Inspections

The experiment will last for over a year and will be a cooperative partnership between tech start-ups Keen AI and sees.ai. It makes use of a technology powered by unmanned drones that fly 'Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS). This generally relates to flying drones to distances outside the pilot's regular seeing range. Artificial intelligence will be used to process the data collected using this approach (AI).

The experimental project will allow for the operation of a fleet of linked and autonomous drones under the supervision of remote operators in a secure Remote Operation Centre. NGET emphasizes that automating data collection and asset inspection processing provides considerable benefits.

This involves capturing data that AI can simply handle without sacrificing efficiency and consistency for speed. Currently, the photos collected by drones are also manually analyzed by a pool of inspectors, with pilots transporting drones to the location of each asset to be examined and then maintaining them in sight at all times while flying.

AI technology also enables inspectors and assessors to properly forecast the future status of any pylon as well as the impact of any upcoming maintenance work. Most significantly, it lowers all risks faced by inspectors during asset audits and inspections.

Do They Really Need This Technology?

To get a sense of the difficulties of assessing the UK grid's assets, consider what they possess. NGET now operates 21,900 steel lattice pylons in England and Wales that carry overhead transmission conductor wires. Transmission pylon steelwork conditions usually lose their quality due to corrosion, thus incurring a frequent need for inspections performed in order to evaluate the network's health.

Each year, NGET inspects around 3,650 steel lattice pylons, obtaining high-resolution still-color photographs of steelwork with helicopters and manually controlled drones. According to Mark Simmons, NGET's conditioning monitoring manager, maintaining and investing in our transmission infrastructure is important to a safe and dependable electrical network.

"This technology will be vital in the future as we connect more and more renewable and low carbon power, expanding our network and delivering world class reliability," Simmons says.

Simmons further notes that technology must be used to supplement the approaches to help operational teams, such as safety, inspection, and maintenance standards management.

Amjad Karim, CEO of Keen AI, expressed his delight about the relationship, stating that it will enable the automation of data gathering through execution. Autonomous drone technology will assist the National Grid in collecting data from end-to-end, analyzing any indication of corrosion or the need for repair or replacement with automation.

According to John McKenna, CEO of sees.ai, the technology fits National Grid's demand for a thorough close-quarter examination of transmission network steelwork and components.