Solar farms face issues with traditional inspection methods. They can cover large areas and are typically placed in remote, rural locations. Additionally, it is best to inspect solar panels thoroughly for defects is when the sun is at its strongest — tiring and even dangerous for workers at the best of times.
Drones can capture both standard visual images but also carry out thermal imaging to spot which panels are faulty and overheating. With drones, large areas of solar farm can be thoroughly inspected in a fraction of the time of a traditional human method.
Wind farms are another renewable seeing the benefits of drone inspection. Industrial wind turbine blades regularly top 115 ft (35 m) in length and tower height can exceed 250 ft (76 m) — giving total heights of over 365 ft (111 m). They really take the definition of “working at height” to a new level!
Drones easily bypass these problems. In just a short time, they can photograph the entire lengths of wind turbine blades and send the footage back to a technician on the ground, where it can later be pulled together and analysed for any structural defects. Inspection time is cut by up to 70% over human inspection.
Railway infrastructure is an area where inspections simply cannot be allowed to slip. The United States Administration estimates that more than a third of all derailments are caused by defective track. Current regulations inspect every foot of track twice a week. But with hundreds of thousands of miles of railway track distributed over the entire country, manual inspection is impossibly time consuming.
The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), working with BNSF Railways, is making real progress improving regulations and allowing exemptions for drone use. While the results for visual inspection are promising, the short range of current commercial drones and the heaviness of ultrasound testing equipment — many track defects can’t be picked up by visual or infrared imaging methods — means there is much room for improvement.
Due to the large potential for complications and even loss of life, bridge infrastructure must be fully inspected on a regular basis and faults caught early.