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.
