Drones for Internal Inspections & Beyond, 2018 PEERS



Interactive Aerial is a R&D, engineering, and manufacturing company for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) based in Traverse City, Michigan. We are currently focused on building drones for internal infrastructure inspections – specifically GPS-denied, confined space environments. In 2015, we partnered with a notable robotic inspection company to produce a drone that effectively performed internal storage tank inspections. As development continued, we immediately added a number of various industries, including power generation companies, pulp & paper mills, cargo ships, flare stacks, and more.   

Let’s start by outline a few pulp & paper assets a company might consider flying a drone inside of. To alleviate the need for scaffolding or to deploy other traditional inspection methods, think about using a UAV inside of assets like high-density pulp storage tanks, bleaching towers, recovery boilers, flare stacks, and more. If it’s a GPS-denied environment, drones will likely be a great solution for a quicker and safer inspection. Understand that drones have their limitations and are not an end-all solution for every outage however. Selecting the right tool for the job is important when it comes to outages, so understanding how most drones work is a good first step.   

For instance, the way a drone navigates is just one part of many to consider when selecting the right aircraft. Using an off-the-shelf hobby drone to fly inside critical assets is challenging for many reasons, but the primary reason for being ineffective is due to their reliance on healthy GPS signals and compass readings. GPS has an extremely hard time making its way through thick concrete or steel, just like a cell phone does deep underground, typically rendering the GPS inoperative. Compass readings on an off-the-shelf drone often succumb to magnetic interference from the steel, which will not allow the vehicle to calibrate properly and arm the motors. With both aspects not working inside confined space, this required our company to come up with a navigation solution that did not rely on GPS or compass. The primary navigation sensor for our vehicle is laser-based, through a 360° spinning LIDAR. LIDAR is most effective because it can work in the pitch black and it naturally takes precise distance measurements from objects, easily giving the drone native laser-based collision avoidance. 

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Author: Christian Smith
Drones for Internal Inspections & Beyond, 2018 PEERS
Drones for Internal Inspections & Beyond, 2018 PEERS
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