The Drone Inspection market is booming, driven by advancements in technology that are constantly creating new applications. And 2024 is shaping up to be another year of significant growth. Drone technology is becoming more accessible and affordable than ever, with a wider range of options available than ever before. To help you navigate this evolving landscape, we’ve compiled a list of the top drones for inspection tasks in 2024.
Inspections remain one of the most popular applications for drone technology. From confined spaces and sewers to hazardous environments, drones are transforming the way inspections are conducted. Here at Coptrz, we’ve continued to help businesses like Severn Trent Water, Texo, Networx3 leverage drone technology to enhance their operations and achieve greater efficiency.
Now let’s get stuck into what you came for:
We’ll take you through the following in this article:
- How drones are transforming inspection processes
- The benefits of drone inspection
- How using drones for inspections reduces costs
- Applications of drone inspection
- Drone inspection cost versus traditional inspection cost
- Our top 6 drones for inspection in 2024
Drones for Inspection Guide 2024: Get the newest industry insights!
How are drones transforming the inspection process?
Drones are being increasingly used in almost every industry that requires visual inspections as part of its maintenance, production and service procedures.
At the heart of this revolution lies the simple principle of using a drone’s camera as an extension of the inspector’s eyes. By capturing high-resolution visual data of assets, even in hard-to-reach or dangerous areas, drones enable detailed evaluation without risk to human inspectors.
But the power of drones goes beyond just visuals. For example, thermal cameras can identify heat leaking from a building or be used to locate people. Multispectral sensors are used in agriculture and enable farmers to record images of crops to analyse their state.
While drones are undoubtedly valuable additions to the inspector’s toolbox, you should not get our messaging confused. Drones will never replace the human inspectors. However, it is crucial to understand that the safest and most efficient approach involves combining both, leveraging drones for a comprehensive 3D overview followed by targeted close-up inspections.
Here are some of the key reasons why drones are transforming inspections across industries:
- Safety: Inspecting high-rise structures, confined spaces, or hazardous environments becomes significantly safer with drones.
- Efficiency: Drones cover large areas quickly and thoroughly, reducing inspection time and costs.
- Data Capture: High-resolution imagery and sensor data provide valuable insights for informed decision-making.
- Accessibility: Drones reach previously inaccessible areas, ensuring complete and detailed inspections.
So, whether you’re inspecting bridges, wind turbines, pipelines, or agricultural fields, consider adding drones to your toolbox. They’re not just the future of inspections – they’re already revolutionising the way we see and assess our world.
Connor Mullan, UAS Pilot for Texo, commented “The Elios 3 is excellent for managing tough environments with GPS shadowing, or is simply too tight for other drones to access. It’s a caged system that uses LiDAR for its positioning, allowing you to get close to your assets without the need to put people at risk of working at height or in confined spaces”.
Using drones to carry out inspections can keep inspector safe by removing the need for them to enter potentially dangerous scenarios, for example climbing towers or high scaffolding.
Traditional maintenance strategies often adopt a reactive approach, waiting until assets fail before initiating repairs. This reactive mindset can lead to significant financial and time expenditures on repairs that could have been avoided, disrupting routine operations with unplanned maintenance demands.
In contrast, implementing more frequent inspections can facilitate early problem detection, thereby reducing repair costs and extending asset lifespan. There’s an increasing emphasis on leveraging innovative monitoring techniques that go beyond conventional on-site visits. Transitioning to remote inspection and data analysis methods enables more consistent and insightful assessments. Such a shift not only enhances resource allocation but also minimises unnecessary asset failures by prioritising interventions based on accurate data.
Challenges like wear, corrosion, and damage from environmental factors pose substantial risks to asset management, including safety hazards, operational interruptions, and unexpected repair expenses. Maintaining precise information on asset conditions is essential for strategic planning and investment. Furthermore, when repairs are necessary, the ability to deploy technicians or specialists efficiently highlights the importance of effective resource management and the strategic use of staff expertise.
The adoption of remote sensing and careful monitoring practices marks a significant move towards more efficient operations and resource management. By ensuring timely and effective interventions, such strategies play a crucial role in maintaining asset integrity and operational efficiency, thus offering a sustainable approach to asset management.
This is important because building scaffolding to allow a person to perform a manual inspection is generally expensive and a timely process. By only building scaffolding when there is a need to perform maintenance, companies can reduce their expenses which results in saving money.
Organisations and their drone operators benefit from both previously unavailable levels of visibility and lower cost by utilising UAVs rather than traditional human, airplane or helicopter methods. Using drones offers improved worker protection and access to information on assets in many dynamic and challenging industries.
At the end of the day, if you’re still inspecting your assets with rope access, then you really need to be considering the impact that drones will have on the safety, speed and cost savings.
George Burne, our business development manager for the inspection industry, is ready to get you started on your drone journey.
