Energy Drone & Robotics Brief | January 24, 2024

The Buzz About Drones in Energy

You know that moment when technology makes you wonder, “Why haven’t we been doing this all along?” That’s exactly what drones are doing for the energy industry.

Pipeline Patrols That Broke Records: 320 miles in a single day? Phoenix Air Unmanned (PAU) made it look as easy as your morning commute—if your commute involved BVLOS waivers and infrastructure inspections with an Event 38 E455.

Piperack Inspections Redefined: Turner Industries cut costs by 60% and saved days of work with the Flyability Elios 3 drone that doesn’t just fly—it does 4K, LiDAR, and safety like a pro.

Drones are no longer just buzzing around for fun. They’re proving their worth in efficiency, safety, and sustainability.?

Don’t just take our word for it—see the stats, stories, and solutions in action.

Do you have a drone use case we should know about? Send it our way.

New Coworkers: The Rise of Humanoid AI Robots

Thanks to advances in technologies like AI, machine learning, 5G, and robotics, humanoid AI robots are stepping into industries like manufacturing, construction, and beyond — forever changing the way we work.

Our latest article dives into Citi’s report The Rise of AI Robots, which predicts 1.3 billion AI robots operational by 2035 (and 4 billion by 2050!). These bots are poised to revolutionize industries like manufacturing, construction, and maintenance.

Here’s what’s in store:

• Cost-efficient Coworkers: With labor shortages and aging workforces, robots offer a serious ROI. Some pay for themselves in just weeks.
• Superhuman Capabilities: From threading needles to scaling skyscrapers, they can handle what humans find tedious—or downright dangerous.
• Challenges Ahead: Sure, they’re incredible, but integrating robots into our world isn’t without its hurdles, like the obvious ethical concerns.

Humanoid AI robots are making industries safer, smarter, and more efficient. That’s the promise of a cutting-edge tech that’s not just futuristic but already shaping industries today.

Read the full humanoid AI robot report summary

Want to delve into more intel on humanoid AI robots from our 2024 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit? Check out The Rise of Humanoids: Transforming the Landscape of Robotics with Ade Famoti from Microsoft for an in-depth look into the state of the industry today as well as a peek into the future of this cutting-edge technology!

Mark your calendars for March 26 and join over 150 industry leaders for an unforgettable evening with the Houston industrial drone and robotics crowd!

What’s on tap?

• Exclusive insights into 2025’s most exciting projects.
• A sneak peek at what’s brewing for 2026 in cutting-edge tech and groundbreaking initiatives.
• Energy and industrial robotics that fly, crawl, walk, and even swim on display!

Reserve a table and put your industrial drone and robotics innovations front and center with decision-makers from Houston’s top energy, engineering, oil and gas companies, and beyond. Tickets are limited—don’t miss your chance to gather with the Houston drone and robotics crew this March! Get involved today.

WHAT ELSE?

• Inside Unmanned Systems connected with two hydrogen fuel solution providers to explore the energy efficiencies, extended flight times and improved logistics for unmanned fleets that this innovative propulsion technology provides. According to the U.S. Department of Energy National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap, achieving net-zero emissions economy-wide by 2050 requires transformational advances in energy infrastructure.
• Pacific Gas & Electric has signed a 5-year agreement with Sharper Shape to use their CORE (Cloud Optimized Remote Evaluation) software for utility asset management. This partnership, which began in 2019, will help PG&E create a digital twin of its infrastructure using LiDAR and RGB imagery analysis.
• Unitree Robotics has updated its humanoid robots with an open-source full-body motion dataset to make them capable of more fluid, natural movement. The Unitree H1, H1-2 and G1 humanoid robot models are able to demonstrate new, smoother movement trajectories to dance, breakdance and drop kick.
• NVIDIA recently announced Cosmos, a platform comprising state-of-the-art generative?world foundation models, advanced tokenizers, guardrails and an accelerated video processing pipeline built to advance the development of?physical AI?systems such as?autonomous vehicles and robots. They also announced generative?AI?models and?blueprints?that expand?NVIDIA Omniverse integration further into?physical AI?applications such as robotics, AVs and vision AI.
• Ondas Holdings Inc.?recently announced that its Ondas Autonomous Systems Inc. business unit's American Robotics subsidiary has secured an additional Federal Aviation Administration Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waiver.?
• XTI Aerospace, Inc. recently announced that it has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding to acquire a 30% fully-diluted equity interest in ReadyMonitor, LLC, a leading AI-powered, autonomous Drone-as-a-Service company, which is expected to close this Q1 2025, with the option to acquire the remaining 70% of ReadyMonitor within 12 months.
• As the United States faces a critical shortage of drone batteries driven by rising tensions with China, a European-American collaboration offers a promising solution. Tulip Tech, a European-based company specializing in high-performance drone batteries, has announced the opening of its new US offices.?

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).

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