Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Drone Harmony (From flight mission planning for drones to 4D asset modelling)
Reporting period: 2019-05-01 to 2019-08-31
"The adoption of digital workflows has the potential to improve processes and reduce risk in the field of infrastructure construction and maintenance. The rise of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (""drones"") as a solid and reliable hardware technology present an unprecedented opportunity to digitize more and more complex infrastructure assets fast and risk-free. The resulting digital models can then be fed into novel analytics tools designed to identify faults better and faster than legacy manual approaches-- all without the previously associated injury risks-- leading to new echelons of efficiency in predictive and reactive maintenance of infrastructure.
Operating drones around infrastructure assets, however, is mostly still a manual, error-prone and inefficient task. The automation of drone data acquisition is key to reach even part of the potential gains in efficiency and risk reduction. The state of technology in the vertical, complex infrastructure markets is even more severe, with close to 100% of current drone maintenance and inspection work still done with manual ad-hoc planning and flying approaches. This results in non-uniform low-quality data and little chance for emergence of scalable workflows, and thus an inherent inability of dealing with consistent digitization large numbers of assets. Software solutions that automate drone data acquisition is key to turning the infrastructure industry to at-scale adoption of drone-based digitalization of infrastructure, and tapping into the immense benefits thereof.
The overall objective of the project is to validate the market for an automated data capture software platform for drones, that will enable automation of drone data capture and lead to adoption of drone digitalization technology in infrastructure markets. The technology is based on Drone Harmony's software platform, capable of consuming 3D environment data and producing optimized and safe flight plans for drone data capture. Such technology will enable an implementation of so-called 4D digital workflows that are concerned with maintaining a time-stamped sequence of accurate 3D digital models of the asset, enabling both spatial and temporal analyses of the assets' state. To achieve this, the data capture technology should be extended to deal with richer forms of 3D data in the automated planning phase.
This project deals with the identification of needs in concrete infrastructure markets (such as cell towers inspection, bridge inspection, oil & gas etc.) and validation of product-market fit for the data capture platform. It also concerns with the identification of ideal go-to geographical markets, integration partners for up- and downstream software solution in the value chain, and identification of a suitable business model for the product.
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Operating drones around infrastructure assets, however, is mostly still a manual, error-prone and inefficient task. The automation of drone data acquisition is key to reach even part of the potential gains in efficiency and risk reduction. The state of technology in the vertical, complex infrastructure markets is even more severe, with close to 100% of current drone maintenance and inspection work still done with manual ad-hoc planning and flying approaches. This results in non-uniform low-quality data and little chance for emergence of scalable workflows, and thus an inherent inability of dealing with consistent digitization large numbers of assets. Software solutions that automate drone data acquisition is key to turning the infrastructure industry to at-scale adoption of drone-based digitalization of infrastructure, and tapping into the immense benefits thereof.
The overall objective of the project is to validate the market for an automated data capture software platform for drones, that will enable automation of drone data capture and lead to adoption of drone digitalization technology in infrastructure markets. The technology is based on Drone Harmony's software platform, capable of consuming 3D environment data and producing optimized and safe flight plans for drone data capture. Such technology will enable an implementation of so-called 4D digital workflows that are concerned with maintaining a time-stamped sequence of accurate 3D digital models of the asset, enabling both spatial and temporal analyses of the assets' state. To achieve this, the data capture technology should be extended to deal with richer forms of 3D data in the automated planning phase.
This project deals with the identification of needs in concrete infrastructure markets (such as cell towers inspection, bridge inspection, oil & gas etc.) and validation of product-market fit for the data capture platform. It also concerns with the identification of ideal go-to geographical markets, integration partners for up- and downstream software solution in the value chain, and identification of a suitable business model for the product.
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The project aimed to verify and increase the understanding of the market need for a sophisticated drone-based data acquisition platform in the field of vertical infrastructure surveying and inspection market. The goals included the verification of the surveying, vertical mapping and inspection markets, including identification of target geographies, basic requirement engineering in target verticals and the design of a suitable business model. On the technical side, the integration of partners in the drone digital workflow value chain (modelling tools, reporting tools etc.), the integration of additional hardware platforms, as well as the integration of commercially available data sources have been evaluated. A roadmap for the platform development was developed and aligned with the findings.
The feasibility study enables us to design a product roadmap and validate its feasibility. In this context, the integration possibilities with additional drone platforms have been evaluated, API-based data sources integration options for DEM data was explored and ranked for data quality, price and integration efforts and partnerships with key software manufacturers was established and strengthened. With a product roadmap at hand, trial partners for the data capture platform were approached established in key markets. A volume of usage-based asset-driven viable business model was defined and the technical implementation of it was assessed.
The above activities re-affirmed the premise that the planned data acquisition platform is both essential for the digital growth of many vertical inspection markets and is feasible to implement by Drone Harmony.
While the need for high quality data is a well-known fact in any digital workflow, the challenge of achieving a robust and repeatable workflow in the drone inspection market has prevented many enterprises from adopting this technology at scale. Drone Harmony accumulated ample feedback that data quality acquisition is the main challenge that enterprises face in several key markets, including electricity, cell tower inspection, oil & gas and inspection of linear infrastructure. All markets have been found to be lucrative markets for the data capture platform with high volumes and a real desire from the markets to reach the next stage of technology adoption, beyond the current approach mainly based on small scale PoCs. The surveying market, while large, was found to be relatively crowded. All opportunities have been quantified and assessed for risks and adoption barriers.
The feasibility study enables us to design a product roadmap and validate its feasibility. In this context, the integration possibilities with additional drone platforms have been evaluated, API-based data sources integration options for DEM data was explored and ranked for data quality, price and integration efforts and partnerships with key software manufacturers was established and strengthened. With a product roadmap at hand, trial partners for the data capture platform were approached established in key markets. A volume of usage-based asset-driven viable business model was defined and the technical implementation of it was assessed.
The above activities re-affirmed the premise that the planned data acquisition platform is both essential for the digital growth of many vertical inspection markets and is feasible to implement by Drone Harmony.
While the need for high quality data is a well-known fact in any digital workflow, the challenge of achieving a robust and repeatable workflow in the drone inspection market has prevented many enterprises from adopting this technology at scale. Drone Harmony accumulated ample feedback that data quality acquisition is the main challenge that enterprises face in several key markets, including electricity, cell tower inspection, oil & gas and inspection of linear infrastructure. All markets have been found to be lucrative markets for the data capture platform with high volumes and a real desire from the markets to reach the next stage of technology adoption, beyond the current approach mainly based on small scale PoCs. The surveying market, while large, was found to be relatively crowded. All opportunities have been quantified and assessed for risks and adoption barriers.
The feasibility study has confirmed the market interest in an asset-centered data capture platform capable of scaling drone-based 4D digital workflows. It was also confirmed that the state of the art data capture solution on the market are unable to deliver the required level of automation in planning drone flights in most considered vertical infrastructure markets, do to their inability to consider the geometric complexity of the assets and their environment. The development of a system that is able to do so is a key technological breakthrough that will facilitate adoption of drone technology in the enterprise space. The value from such technology will be gained by enterprises and asset owners once combined with an asset management system dedicated to data capture.
The long-run expected impact on the inspection and maintenance markets in the cell tower, bridge, utilities, oil & gas and other industries is full transition to drone-based digitalization of the infrastructure, leading to huge cost reductions, improved maintenance workflows, and a dramatic drop in associated injuries and deaths from performing such work with current manual methods.
The long-run expected impact on the inspection and maintenance markets in the cell tower, bridge, utilities, oil & gas and other industries is full transition to drone-based digitalization of the infrastructure, leading to huge cost reductions, improved maintenance workflows, and a dramatic drop in associated injuries and deaths from performing such work with current manual methods.