Flying Inspectors!

Love them or detest them “a drone” is now a Christmas must have present for a typical gadget-crazy consumer with money to burn, errr...spend. A technology that began life as a military tool, the drone eventually has landed in the consumer sector with thousands of the devices being sold in the UK every month. A flashing buzzing hovering machine being remotely controlled by a teenager and a middle-aged man alike is becoming an everyday sight.

But, these smart little flying machines are proving their usefulness in real-world applications. Drones have found themselves being used in construction, energy and manufacturing sectors in a variety of applications.   

Use of drones within the chemical plants and oil and gas services industry is also taking off. Surveyors are taking on courses to become a ‘pilot’ albeit I would not trust one to fly my plane! Drones are being used (by us at DNV GL and others) in surveying to carry out surveys in awkward and dangerous locations. Experience has taught us that drone-assisted close-up survey can be carried out with the same quality as convention alone, while at the same time reducing survey duration and improving safety of surveyors. It is also expected that for our clients this survey method will significantly reduce the survey preparation cost. Some say, the future will be total automation (not sure that is a good thing!). Algorithms will run a fully automated drone inspection service.

Drones are near perfect platform to carry the “sensor” into the air and close to its target without the need for scaffolding and people climbing up structures. This is indeed a relief for those colleagues who fear heights and find themselves on a wind-swept North Sea platform with rough seas or climbing up a wind turbine in chilly Scottish Highlands.

Some advantages of using drones for industrial inspection are:

• High definition imagery which aids thorough inspection.
• Improving safety of people
• Usually, no down-time required; The asset can stay operational during the inspection.
• Drones can offer invaluable assistance in emergency response.
• Ability to get close to locations where and gain imagery where traditional methods are either full of risk or not feasible.
• High and complex structures can be inspected with relative ease.

Let’s look at some questions which people ask.

How will a drone help me? The key benefit of using a drone based inspection is that they are much safer, faster and cheaper than conventional inspection techniques such as rope access and scaffolding. The use of drones requires little or no down-time for inspections. Drones can be used for collecting high quality data which can be used to optimise the whole inspection and maintenance process by helping to predict failures.

What activities can they be used for? Many! Flare stack inspections, topside survey, below-deck inspection, inside storage holds to name to a few.

Regulation?

The rules governing flight and certification of UAVs are created by regional transport authorities such as the FAA in the United States, Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA) in Canada and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for most of Europe. All of these authorities are trying to keep up with an industry that is innovating faster than regulations can keep up.

EASA has been tasked by the European Commission to develop a set of European rules for drones. The drone industry is diverse, innovative and international. It has an enormous potential for growth with the associated possibility to create jobs. At the same time, it is needed to ensure a safe, secure and environmentally friendly development, and to respect the citizens’ concerns for safety, privacy and data protection. With these two sets of priorities, EASA is proposing changes to the existing aviation rules to take into consideration the latest developments of drones and impact assessmenrt (A?NPA: Notice of Proposed Amendment to the rules). The public consultation period for the NPA will finish on the 15 September 2017.

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