Skyports Drone Services, a global leader in drone deliveries, surveys and monitoring, announced this week a partnership with Ground Control, a UK environmental maintenance and biodiversity company, to begin a new drone survey and AI data capture service for Network Rail.
The release explains, “By capturing mission-critical environmental data, vegetation encroachment, tree type and health, the service enables the UK railway infrastructure owner to make data-led decisions on their vegetation management, reduce impact on biodiversity, respond rapidly to risks and limit delays for rail-users.”
It continues, “Network Rail has over 10,000 miles of railways to manage and maintain. Managing vegetation must strike a balance between keeping railway lines clear and safe, while protecting natural habitats. Within the next 18 months it will become mandatory to protect and improve natural habitats around the UK.”
The announcement follows a collaborative trial period last year in Cornwall, when the two performed asset inspection and data capture flights for ecological survey, vegetation and plant health monitoring, as well as to identify tree species.
The partnership aims to roll out this new service to rail, roads and power transmission as well as distribution companies across the UK and Ireland.
Skyports is to deploy its Stellaire (previously Field) Explorer drone. The craft, which was added to the service fleet in December, is specially designed for linear infrastructure inspection and capable of simultaneously capturing a range of datasets, including nadir and oblique images, thermal images and LiDAR.
Peter Stirratt, Skyports Survey & Inspection Project Lead, remarked, “The adoption of this new technology by Network Rail is a testament to the industry’s readiness to embrace innovation and find alternative solutions that are faster, more sustainable and safer. We look forward to expanding our service with Ground Control to continue to demonstrate how drone services can transform data capture capabilities.”
Austin Brown, Infrastructure Director at Ground Control, added, “Having the ability to collect a multitude of high-quality data will allow our clients and operational teams to make better informed decisions, while improving safety, environmental and financial performance.”
Background
The release states “Traditional methods of conducting vegetation surveys of railways come with several downsides. Be it the risks to personnel accessing dangerous railway settings, the limitations of flying helicopters in poor weather, or the limited data capture capabilities on manually controlled drones.”
It continues, “Unlike existing methods, the partners’ craft and data analytics system is fully automated, capable of being flown Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), and carries multiple sensors capable of simultaneously capturing a range of data.”
The data collected is instantaneously uploaded to Stellaire’s analytics suite where Artificial Intelligence is used to provide “near real-time insights, depending on customer requirements.”
These insights can be as detailed as single-tree analysis, which can identify species, tree height, crown radius and health. This data enables risk-based analysis and informed decisions on vegetation management, while mitigating against damage to natural habitats and reducing time and cost.
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