We may be familiar with drones being used for entertainment purposes, but increasingly, they are having a significant input into how we design, deliver and manage assets.

After the New Zealand earthquakes of 2011, a drone was used to collect information from high risk areas using high definition cameras during demolition works of damaged properties on cliff tops, and during construction of debris avalanche protection works at the bottom of the cliffs in the Port Hills area of Christchurch. This eliminated sending people into hazardous locations, captured richer data and was a much faster process, providing a better, safer solution for all involved.

This engineering application has undergone continuous development since and is now being utilised in other circumstances to gather data from a site to aid in inspection and analysis, and feed it into a CAD system for design, and into computer networks for materials ordering and manufacture. High quality laser measurements, along with other drone-collected and collated data, is fed straight into the design process to streamline computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing.

Taking it one step further, 3D models can be created from imagery collected by drones, laser scanning and photogrammetry, to create a virtual, interactive environment in which assets can be assessed and continually updated and monitored, for lifelong operational and capital management.

Saving lives and assets in natural disasters

As well as the New Zealand example above, a Nokia project in the UAE facilitates efficient rescue operations for first responders by bringing instant communication services through a network of specially equipped drones.

‘Saving Lives’ uses a lightweight base station that provides highly reliable, 4G network connectivity between video camera-equipped drones and a control centre. The system demonstrates how groups of drones flying in formation can efficiently search for people in a disaster area, providing images in real time, with no risk to pilots.

‘Saving Lives’ won the 2017 United Arab Emirates Drones for Good International category award.

Drone inspection and assessment of a Telco Tower.

Drone inspection and assessment of a Telco Tower.

In 2015, Telstra used a drone to inspect damage to mobile base stations after major bushfires ravaged the coastal area around Wye River, Victoria. Add thermal measurement, structural scans and analysis to the drone sensor payload, and problems are speedily identified for more efficient repairs and replacements after such natural disasters.

Imagine using that same capability for multiple drones assessing infrastructure after natural disasters, and monitoring services and the safety of people across a region. Add thermal imaging, a laser radar as well as sensors to drone manoeuvrability and they are equipped for environment quality monitoring. For instance, pollution sensors and thermal cameras on drones can survey bushfire-prone areas and assets, sending data back to fire authorities in real time.

Drones are more than photography

For the built environment, the benefits of high quality, high-level data that enables fully immersive 3D functionality revolutionises design technologies and project outcomes.

Drones provide innovative approaches to data capture, linking sophisticated sensors and image capture with high level analysis tools to provide data faster, more accurately, more safely and cost effectively. Storing extensive datasets, and using them creatively and productively, is now indispensable in gaining and sustaining competitive advantage, and fulfilling community expectations.

With the utilisation of drones, or Remote Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), laser scanning, 3D imagery and photogrammetry, we can view critical facilities at a site from a virtual space back in the office, reducing the requirement to revisit sites for doublechecking information. Once this data is captured we can then use this data to further enhance future designs or processes.

As well as aiding site inspection, planning and health and safety, drones also have point cloud scanning capabilities that feed into building information modelling (BIM) and volumetric measurements to visualise design ideas with CAD models. Aurecon is currently using this capability together with ground control points to generate complex digital terrain models as a basis for concept and preliminary designs. It gives us significantly more efficiency during the options analysis phase, being quicker, covering significantly more area and replacing/supplementing detailed conventional survey.

Using drones for asset management

Drone inspection means asset management teams can conduct comprehensive, repeatable, autonomous inspections and collect imagery that can be difficult to access by traditional means. The latest technologies, such as multirotor drones and advanced sensors, allow for site scanning to be conducted more efficiently and accurately.

For example, to establish line of sight (LOS) between telecommunications sites to install a data transmission link for a new mobile base, the previous approach was to send elevated work platforms to each location, raising them to the desired transmission height and having two workers locate each other at either end. Now it only needs one drone operator with a high-quality camera to establish line of sight. This means a safer and expedited turnaround time for documentation, and delivers more accuracy across the datasets. In an early illustration of the efficiency of this approach, 27 tower paths in the Cairns area were inspected by drones, with 30 to 40 sites covered per day, compared to the elevated work platform average of two sites per day (with a 10 percent need for a revisit, when access was a problem).

While we all think of useful imagery, other advantages of drones for surveying include being able to automate topography in Autodesk, reducing the hours required to convert survey information into CAD platforms. As there is a significant improvement in the overall quality and complexity of data, using drones in combination with traditional manual surveying delivers huge productivity and accuracy gains across a tower survey budget.

Aurecon’s approach to asset management goes beyond just collecting data for condition assessment. As seen in Figure 1, drones are used, along with laser scanning and photogrammetry, to capture data which can then be used to create a virtual model. While this model can be used for condition, compliance and capacity assessment, it provides whole-of-life applicability, whereby the data can be accessed (and continually updated) to formulate on-going maintenance schedules, options assessments, operational procedures and strategic planning, asset upgrades, training manuals and more. Data collected in this way has no impact on site operations, is faster, safer, more reliable and of a higher quality.

Aurecon recently used this technology for a Wastewater Treatment Plant Condition Assessment project in North Queensland, utilising our digital asset data capture capabilities to enable a more comprehensive data set. The client will also be able to use this data to further enhance future designs or processes.

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