Intelligent drone for more precise monitoring of high construction buildings
Sky Tronic signed a Letter of Intent with BILAN to collaborate on development, tests and market launch of autonomic drone dedicated to aerial thermography and professional infrared audit of high construction works. ThermoCopter FLC is intended to reach an unaccessible places (high buildings, roof, power lines, pipelines etc.) and indentify heat loss, failures and constructional defects in faster, more cost efficient and more precise way.
The intelligent multicopter will increase safety and shorten the time of conducting thermal and technical inspections of tall buildings and will save the costs related to renting the expensive helicopters. The thermographic measurements with thermal camera from the ground are difficult or impossible due to the high altitudes and unavailability of tall building objects.
ThermoCopter FLC will be tested in real operating conditions, performing thermal inspection services for clients and partners of BILAN, among others construction companies and building owners. The BILAN company declared cooperation in the preparation of final thermovision reports and full thermal documentation of the building structure for clients on the basis of thermovision measurements presented by Sky Tronic. The ground control system will integrate multiple images from the thermal imaging camera into a whole and apply it to the building body in the form of a precise 3D model, which will notice temperature differences indicating thermal losses, leaks, dampness, etc. BILAN will promote the project among existing customers and will be jointly with the Sky Tronic will conduct activities aimed at acquiring customers interested in thermal inspection services.
ThermoCopter FLC will be equipped with an intelligent flight control and stabilisation system for unmanned aerial vehicles based on fuzzy logic algorithms (Fuzzy Logic Controller – FLC) that steers and controls the drone in the same way as a human brain does, accomodating to the changes in the mass of payload and strong wind in real time. The inspection drone developed by Sky Tronic will have fully autonomous navigation, high flight stability and positioning precision, and thus will be able to safely perform operations and make accurate measurements in difficult and changing weather and terrain conditions, including high altitudes.
In the autonomous flight mode the drone will take off itself, plan and make a flight on the the planned trajectory, and then land in the planned place with the precision up to 2 cm. Artificial intelligence algorithms based on neural networks will help to remember the flight routes and create 3D spatial models of objects, so that the drone can orientate itself in unfamiliar and difficult terrain. The inspection drone will be equipped with a collision avoidance system with a set of specialized sensors – inertial, ultrasonic and laser, which will help in making decisions, among others intelligent navigation between obstacles along the route (eg trees, power lines, etc.) in real time and creating alternative routes to reach the destination. The drone will use the SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) technology, that accurately maps spatial elements within the monitored construction objects’ system in real time.
The thermal inspections using a specialized ThermoCopter FLC will eliminate the risk of health exposure or loss of human life while working at significant heights and will contribute to the improvement of the work of many specialists, including building inspectors. Due to their small size and light weight (up to 600 g), inspection drones will be able to safely monitor places that are difficult to reach and dangerous (eg high buildings, entire roof surfaces and elevations, power grids, gas pipelines, mountain cable cars, gas pipelines, bridges, windmills, chimneys , turbines) without drone operator license. The unmanned aerial vehicle will be so precise due to the fact that it will fly low and stable and at a short distance from the object up to 2 m, where the biggest building turbulences occur and with the speed guaranteeing its capture in high resolution. In addition, an inspection drone with installed video and thermal imaging cameras will enable full radiometric measurement as well as live video transmission and preview.
Michał Lower, PhD, Product Development Director at Sky Tronic, comments:
“We are looking forward to collaborate with BILAN to develop and launch inspection drones to transform thermographic audits. The established cooperation with BILAN brings us closer to the goal of the commercialization of a new autonomous control system based on fuzzy flight stabilization regulators dedicated to the construction and energy industries. Our goals is that ThermoCopter FLC will become the standard equipment of majority of construction and energy companies in Poland and Europe. We hope that together we will improve the system, using over 25 years of BILAN experience in the implementation of thermomodernization projects for buildings, industrial and engineering facilities as well as the requirements for conducting thermal measurements of building objects. “
Paweł Bilka, the owner of the BILAN Design Studio comments: “We believe that cooperation with Sky Tronic will contribute to the development of a system that will be closely adapted to the needs and requirements of our clients. We hope that the inspection drone will allow faster, cheaper inspection of large areas, as it will provide construction companies with a full report on the energy audit of buildings, indicating precisely the areas that require the changes during the thermal modernization of buildings. On the other hand, a precise thermal imaging audit will enable building owners to save significant heating costs when defects are detected early. “