The Sky Is The Limit

Peter Kalaitzidis?was hired last year as NYPA’s first full-time?Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) program manager, overseeing and setting direction for our use of drones. He is a U.S. Air Force veteran who has been flying remote control airplanes since he was 8 years old. Peter worked in the private sector as an engineer, most recently with Easy Aerial, a provider of drone-based monitoring solutions for commercial, government and military applications.

We asked Peter to share some details about UAS, its growing impact on NYPA and what’s yet to come.

Q: How did the program get started, and how big is it today?

A: It was formulated as a research and development project in 2016, and we began recruiting people to be drone pilots. At first, we focused on anyone with a pilot’s license, but today it’s much different. We’re rethinking the way we use new tools for the future, and we’re open to pursuing licensing for anyone who would benefit from having that designation. Before I was hired, we were doing roughly 75 to 100 missions per year. So far this year, we’ve done more than 300. That’s a result of adding pilots and doing more types of work with drones.

Q: How many drone pilots do we have?

A: Right now, there are 32, and another 20 in the queue. It’s spilt almost evenly between union and management, which is a great percentage to have, because each approaches the work in a different way. Union pilots help define the steps on how to complete a job, while management defines the deliverables. So, say you’re addressing an issue with danger trees…what should the outcome be? A thousand photos? A computer model? Both?

Q: What is the process for getting licensed?

A: The first step is for someone to get the approval of their supervisor and regional manager. Then they’re enrolled in a NYPA training course. If they pass that, they take a basic flying course. Some people, like linemen, require more skills training because of the type of flying they would do. The last step is for the person to pass a Federal Aviation Agency exam. The entire process generally takes three to six months. It all depends on people’s schedules.

Q: How much do our drones cost?

A: Our cheapest ones run about $1,000. The LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) units, which are used to get extremely detailed measurements, are tens of thousands of dollars. The camera that’s on the unit and the software that goes with it also affect the price tag.

Q: How are drones used at NYPA?

A: They’ve become an important tool for many things! When a transmission tower goes up, a drone can scan it, creating a digital record. A drone can be used to examine that tower and its lines in the future, taking pictures of components that allow us to spot problems quickly and safely. Vegetation Management crews use them to track danger trees encroaching on a right of way. At St. Lawrence, they’re used to take 360-degree pictures of the ice sheet and flows, and we can use that information to keep track of how it changes over time.

A drone with an infrared detector can help us monitor how hot our transmission insulators get. We’re also doing a pilot program in which we’re spraying herbicides and pesticides from a drone. Instead of sending a crew member down a steep embankment to spray, we can do spot spraying with the drone. We can zero in on the target and use less pesticide and herbicide in a controlled space.

And that’s just within Operations. There are many other parts of the business where we can or already are incorporating drones into the work, like using them to take photos or videos that can be used with a press release or sent out on our social media channels.

There’s really no limit to how we can use drones. If I hand you and your coworker a robot, you’re going to have two different ideas for how to use it.

Q: Can you give an example of a way in which drones have drastically improved the way we go about our work?

A: We’re installing a 4-megawatt combined heat and power plant at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. The project manager and I went down to monitor the progression of the project. We took 300 photos with the drone. By the time we drove back to the office in White Plains, parked the car and went inside, the photos had been entered into the database and maps that incorporated the photos had already been created before we sat down at our desks.

Q: What challenges does NYPA face with the UAS program?

A: In our state, we have extreme cold and wind, and in the summer, the power grid is in heavy use. So weather is our limiting factor. We never want our pilots in an uncomfortable situation.

Even in the most pristine conditions, there are issues. The FAA just approved a one-year window for us to do flights at our Zeltmann project in Queens, which is a massive undertaking because of what’s nearby. There are no-fly zones over LaGuardia International Airport and Yankee Stadium, and pilots must take them into account.

Another challenge is that we’re rethinking the way we use new tools for the future. Right now, we’re not equipped to handle all the data that’s coming in. When we take a picture, we want to know the exact altitude and location.

Addressing what I call media management, which is the collection and tagging of photos, is one of our immediate goals. We need to ensure that every piece of media can serve us well. If a pilot also takes pictures with an iPhone while they’re using a drone, those pictures can also be valuable. We need to make sure they get captured as well, as this would be helpful for getting AI (artificial intelligence) image processing in place.

As we make progress in these and other areas, we’re going to have a huge digital record of everything we’ve done. This helps with our?VISION2030?strategic plan, as the resulting media management well help with creating a digital representation of our assets. The pictures we take before and during installation become useful when monitoring our assets afterwards.

Q: Do drones provide data for NYPA’s?Integrated Smart Operations Center?(iSOC), which uses predictive analytics to forecast and prevent equipment failures and outages in our generation and transmission assets?

A: Not yet. Hopefully by next spring, the iSOC operators will be able to know where our drones are operating at any given moment.

Q: With so many drone pilots on staff, spread out geographically across a large state, how do you keep tabs on what everyone is doing?

A: Since being hired, I’ve traveled to each site eight or nine times, and not for a day. I stay a week at a time. I talk to people. I knock on doors. I ask, “Have you seen this technology? How can I help you in your job?” Talking to our employees and listing to them is more important than anything else. I tell people, “Your job is to tell me your problem. Mine is to figure out how I can help you save time.” Because when I can save people time, we both win.