Energy Drone & Robotics Brief | February 7, 2024

The Future of Energy Operations Takes Flight

What do you get when you bring together ExxonMobil, Oxy, Dow, Florida Power & Light, and a room full of robotics enthusiasts? The Energy Drone & Robotics Asset Owner Roundtable — and let’s just say, it didn’t disappoint. The panel was made up of:

• Shankar Nadarajah, ExxonMobil
• Dustin Waller, Oxy
• Marty Robinson, Dow
• Heath McLemore, Florida Power & Light Company
• Sean Guerre, Energy Drone & Robotics Coalition (Moderator)

This group covered drones zipping through hot oil cargo tanks (don’t try this at home), robots braving confined spaces, and AI so smart it’s practically running its own departments.

Check out our recap to read about:

• Drones-in-a-box: How companies are scaling fleets faster than your coffee delivery
• Hazardous Heroics: Robots taking over dangerous jobs so humans can stay safe
• Data Overload Solutions: Because no one has time to sort through 3,000 photos of pipes
• Future Plans: The panelists are working toward drones flying solo and robots welding like pros

That’s just the tip of the propeller. At the roundtable, panelists dove deep into how robotics and drones are solving the industry’s toughest challenges:

• ExxonMobil’s Shankar Nadarajah talked about deploying drones in 60-degree Celsius oil tanks (that’s 140 degrees Fahrenheit)
• Dustin Waller from Oxy shared how their BVLOS waiver has opened up a world of possibilities for off-site piloting
• Heath McLemore talked us through how Florida Power & Light is leading the charge with drone-in-a-box systems that can fly from substation to substation, controlled by a central team miles away
• Marty Robinson helped us look to the future with his take on expanding Dow’s robotic capabilities into industrial cleaning, NDT, and even fastener repair.

With great robots comes great data — lots of it. The panelists shared how they’re handling data collection, processing, and analysis.?

The Asset Owner Roundtable is one of our most popular sessions at every Energy Drone & Robotics Summit. Read the recap of last year’s while you wait for registration to open for this year’s, which will be June 16-18 in Houston Texas.

Drones Did It First — Now It’s Digital Twins’ Turn

Remember when drones first hit the scene, and everyone thought they were just fancy flying cameras? Fast forward a decade, and they’re essential tools for mapping, inspections, and maintenance.?

Well, guess what? Digital twins and reality capture are on the same trajectory — right now, they’re the cool new tech that everyone’s curious about, but adoption is tentative and use cases are still being fleshed out.

In our recent article, we dive into how digital twins are following the same adoption curve, facing the same skepticism, and proving their worth one ROI-driven project at a time. Just like drones, they’re going from “interesting” to “indispensable.”

Maybe in 10 years, we’ll be having this same conversation about AI-powered robot butlers.

Read the full story on digital twin and reality capture adoption

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Register to get the latest project updates, real-word use cases, tech releases and more, plus stroll the exhibit floor and attend four events for the price of one. Trust us, you want to be there.

WHAT ELSE?

• In a recent study funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, experts show that humans can single-handedly and effectively manage a heterogenous swarm of more than 100 autonomous ground and aerial vehicles, while feeling overwhelmed only for brief periods of time during an overall small portion of the mission.?
• Robotic technology company Kodiak Robotics and energy solutions provider Atlas Energy Solutions have complete an autonomous trucking initiative with the delivery of 100 loads of proppant using Atlas’s two customer-owned, autonomous RoboTrucks, the first commercial semi-trucks to operate without drivers in regular service.
• Terra Drone Corporation announced the release of its in-house developed indoor inspection drone, “Terra Xross 1”, in both Japan and the United States, the first indoor inspection drone developed and produced by Terra Drone.
• Square Robot, Inc. has knocked down two more barriers for its onstream, robotic tank inspections. The SR-3 submersible robot has formally received the NEC/CEC Class I Division 2 (C1D2) certification and Square Robot's Side Launcher has received the NEC/CEC Class I Division 1 (C1D1) certification.
• DroneDeploy announced nationwide U.S. Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) approval for critical infrastructure, including data center construction management. The nationwide BVLOS approval was secured in partnership with ArgenTech Solutions, Inc.
• ACSL, Inc. has announced a partnership with Exertis Almo, a North American distributor, to increase the availability of its flagship SOTEN drone.?
• 1X announced the acquisition of Kind Humanoid, uniting two robotics teams with aligned visions to advance humanoid technology.?
• XOCEAN has closed a €115 million fundraise that will help support its ongoing growth across the company's expanding global footprint. The company partnered with S2G Ventures (S2G) to structure the round.

ABOUT US

The Energy Drone & Robotics Coalition is focused on innovating energy operations with dynamic UAV, Robotics, Data and Automation solutions.

The Energy Drone & Robotics Coalition (aka EDR Coalition or EDRC) is a forum dedicated to launching, growing and scaling enterprise unmanned systems operations in energy companies worldwide by bringing the leaders in the drone and robotics ecosystem together with the energy industrial complex asset owners and end users.

The EDRC brings innovators together to advance the industry through digital resource sharing (like the weekly Energy Drone & Robotics Newsroom, resources on the website, blogs, podcasts and webinars), as well as live, virtual and hybrid events (including the annual Global Gathering, as well as smaller meetups throughout the year).

Subscribe and every Tuesday get the top use cases, projects and tech to stay in-the-loop on industrial drones, robotics, automation, geospatial and AI!