Powerline inspections
STREAMLINING INSPECTIONS BY FACTOR 10
Powerline inspections today
The importance of regular inspections and timely maintenance is crucial to reduce resource input, keep costs down, and restore electricity quickly.
Most power grid operators rely on a combination of on-the-ground staff and helicopters to inspect their power lines. There are several drawbacks with these methods:
Slow outage management: Due to their size and weight, helicopters are far from optimal for carrying out power line inspections. Adverse weather conditions and operations in areas of narrow passage enhances these shortcomings.
Workforce safety hazards: Working in challenging terrain and weather conditions are two of the reasons why power grid operators face high risks. It would help if you don’t have to leave to vehicle and do your inspections at highway speed.
Disparate systems: It is not uncommon for utilities to use different systems throughout its inspection process. From planning to detailed ground crew work orders, data and information travels through a number of systems that are completely isolated. Ideally, all the inspection process stages should be integrated into a synchronized system.
Automated inspection at highway speed
The industry is changing to accommodate improved methods of traditional processes, especially now that artificial intelligence (AI) and complex machine learning algorithms are proving to be effective in the field mobile mapping.
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Snappy Workflow business case
Challenge
Fast Forward (formally Snappy Workflow), helps electric utility companies lower inspection costs by automating thermal inspections of powerlines using proprietary data collection software.
Fast Forward was looking for a modular, imagery based, mobile mapping platform. Besides the hardware they needed mapping software to deliver a simple report on each structure importable into any GIS software.
Horus solution
We delivered one CityMapper systems for capturing the spherical imagery only. The second CityMapper included a thermal camera rig with 4 thermal cameras mounted on top.
The Horus GeoSuite software is included with the CityMapper. And enables you to transform, process, extract and share your data across your organization or via the web.
GeoSuite is the ideal solution to generate deliverables such as: Geo-referenced panoramic images & GIS data capture.
Impact
Now, Fast Forward enables electric utilities to automate the documentation of line patrols, while simultaneously cleaning up GIS data, and implementing inspections.
- Inspectors install a roof mounted thermal camera on a vehicle to accelerate the inspection process by 10x.
- Proprietary software automates the capture process so the operator can drive non-stop down the road. Inspectors can yield over 2000 miles per week, per car.
- Decreasing data over 70%, while still attaining actionable results for the electric utility.