Inside Unmanned Systems provides actionable business intelligence to decision-makers and influencers operating within the global UAS community. Features include analysis of key technologies, policy/regulatory developments and new product design.
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22 unmanned systems inside January/February 2016 AIR UTILITIES drone research program at the Electric Power Research Institute, or EPRI, a non-profit re- search organization focused on utilities. "For us safety is key. Next is increasing the reliability of the transmission system by col- lecting higher fidelity data that's time stamped. And then of course there's cost optimization," Phillips said. "It reduces cost in two ways. First if you identify a high risk component before it fails you can reduce outages and reduce costs by being more proactive. And then there's the actual cost of doing the inspection. In the long run it offers an opportunity to reduce the cost of inspection and assessment." The Challenges Making UAS a routine part of utility inspection and eventually repair operations won't be easy, but the research happening now will help the industry get there faster. For more than three years, EPRI has looked into how UAS can be safely and effectively integrated into the utilities sector, Phillips said. They've evaluated and compared UAS in certain scenarios, he explained, and worked with various UAS manufacturers—including conducting a field test in Canada with ING Robotic Aviation. Now, they're researching the effects an elec- trical environment can have on drones—one of the challenges to incorporating UAS into this sector. "UAS are impacted by the electromagnetic field. We've developed a test to prove UAS can work in this environment," Phillips said. "We don't want a UAS to f ly off into the distance and impact public safety or the reliability of the transmission system. Before we can qualify ven- dors and qualify the technology, we must have Photos courtesy of (Left) Southern Company and (Right) Flyability Southern Co.: Next Steps While they're only in the R&D; phase, Southern Company wants to be ready to fully integrate UAS when the time is right. They're identifying contractors as well as employees who have pilot licenses and could beneft from using Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). Once UAS are a full part of their operations, Dexter Lewis, the frm's senior engineer, expects they'll contract out more complicated applications and do others in-house. LEFT: A UAS in fight during a Southern Company inspection. RIGHT: Inspection of the osprey nest on a Southern Company transmission tower. Wish List While the technology continues to evolve, there are still advancements Dexter Lewis, Southern Company's senior engineer and technical expert on unmanned aircraft, would like to see to make unmanned aircraft even more useful in the utilities sector. For instance, many of the images that come from the aircraft in real-time aren't high resolution. He said he'd love to have access to high-res images right away, rather than loading the data taken from the aircraft onto an SD card and then putting the card into a laptop to take a look.