Telefónica Tech creates a drone solution
13/04/2022
Telefónica Tech has developed a predictive maintenance solution for electricity grids using drones, with the aim of ensuring their reliability and guaranteeing their proper functioning. Its implementation will increase the safety of companies, improve the quality of the process and optimise costs compared to traditional methods.
The drone used for the inspection of medium- and high-voltage networks (vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), which combines a fixed wing with propellers) has an optical camera, a thermal camera, a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor (remote sensing using laser light) and a gas sensor. The aircraft weighs only 5.5 kg, reaches a maximum speed of 100 km/h and has a range of up to five hours.
The information captured by the sensors is transmitted via 5G for processing with pre-trained artificial intelligence algorithms, which combine this data with historical and other external sources to assess which elements require maintenance. If anomalies are detected, the system is able to generate early alerts that indicate the need for more detailed analysis or to establish a new flight for more specific captures.
The solution also has a flight management platform, where the functions and movements of the drone are controlled, flight missions are planned, annotations are made on the map based on the data collected by the aircraft and video with telemetry information is gathered.
Andrés Escribano, Director of New Business and Industry 4.0 at Telefónica Tech, said: “We are very proud to continue innovating and accompanying companies in their digital development. The application of drones in the business world presents numerous sectorial use-cases that will be expanded and perfected with the massive deployment of 5G. The incorporation of drones in maintenance tasks will allow companies to increase their occupational safety and anticipate possible failures or incidents that without this predictive analysis could end in service outages with their corresponding social and economic impact.”
Predictive maintenance of electrical networks with drones has the ability to detect corrosion of insulators and check the temperature of the network in order to identify excessive hot spots that could cause a future failure.
The mapping created by the drone flight allows the company to establish safety corridors to prevent fires and trees falling on the towers. In addition, the solution is designed to be able to identify SF6 leaks (a non-toxic gas used in high-voltage electrical equipment) that have a high environmental impact, as well as bird nests and weeds on the towers or cables that could cause power outages.
Telefónica Tech’s solution has a direct impact on the prevention of occupational hazards by preventing workers from operating at heights or near voltage and improves the quality of work by providing high-precision images that can be processed in a safe environment. It also optimises operational costs and improves operations by avoiding the use of helicopters for these functions, meaning that operators do not need to travel to the area for routine tasks and allowing post-processing to be carried out from the office.
