Drone adoption in the transportation sector is growing rapidly. A 2018 study conducted by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) found that 35 states are working with drones in some capacity, with 20 states having incorporated drones into the regular activities of their Department of Transportation (DOT), and 15 states still undergoing testing and research .
As with many sectors, drones are helping to cut down the time and cost needed for inspections of critical infrastructure in transportation.
Traditionally, an inspection of a railroad would have to happen manually, with an inspector walking the track and noting any irregularities. With drones, these inspections can now be done much more quickly, and produce more accurate data.
In fact, one of the first private partners of the FAA’s Pathfinder Program was BNSF Railways, who did research on Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flights for railway inspections.
To do this kind of work you need to have a general understanding of what you’re looking for in these kinds of inspections, which means making sure you get enough coverage of the assets being inspected—whether they’re railroad ties, or roads, or bridges—so that problem areas can be identified using the data you collect.
The good news is that, as software develops, we can often simply upload the raw images collected and have the software identify problem areas, as Intel demonstrated last year at InterDrone.
We are insured, FAA certified remote pilots. Our projects include residential, commercial, agricultural and government clients:
- Railroads
- Inspecting railroad ties and tracks to identify problems before they become worse
- Monorails
- Inspecting and surveying concrete support beams, rails, and other critical components
- Roads
- Using drone data to mitigate risks posed by rockslides, landslides, and flooding
- Rivers
- Regularly surveying rivers to prevent flooding and damage to roadways
- Bridges
- Inspecting bridge decks, support beams, girders, and other critical components in bridges
For more information, please visit our website www.floridadronetech.com