Industrial Aerobotics continues lead in utility sector drone operations.
The commercial drone market in the U.S. has advanced significantly in the last 12 months. As the FAA section 333 exemptions continue to be approved, a few specialized industry verticals are forming. The most obvious is the Hollywood Filming vertical that started the commercial boom by pouring lobby money into the system to put heat on the FAA to get moving on the congress mandate to allow commercial use. Following up the leader of the pack is the Precision Agricultural vertical that is ramping fast.
Arguably the most impactful use for drones as we move into the long-term is in the Infrastructure Inspections vertical. This is the vertical where significant cost savings can be achieved in addition to having a very beneficial impact on safety.
Industrial Aerobotics took an early lead in this vertical specializing on the energy sector. As one of the first 50 FAA Section 333 approvals, they were the only approval who specialized in Solar Field inspections and Electric Utility asset inspections. With custom built UAV’s capable of 60 minute flights including payload they are leading the pack in this arena. By utilizing the highest quality propulsion system coupled with a custom battery design they are able to stay in the air longer to allow more streamlined inspections and lower operating costs.
As featured in the September issue of Transmission and Distribution World magazine, Industrial Aerobotics helped the leading southwest utility, Arizona Public Service (APS) to analyze the costs savings and operational benefits of using UAV’s for routine and emergency inspections. As detailed in the T&D World article, the NPV cost savings over a 3 year period were significant. Unlike some other utilities investigating UAV use for inspections, APS found in their analysis that the most significant cost savings can be realized by using a UAV Service Provider such as Industrial Aerobotics to carry out their inspections instead of developing an in-house program. Having a 3rd party manage the vehicles, maintenance, regulatory paperwork, insurance, pilot training, etc allowed APS to avoid all the direct costs that do not map to core functions of a utility company. The true value to APS was the data product and analysis.
