The European Certiflight Project has carried out the second validation scenario testing the correct functioning of the technology in its powerline inspection use case. This scenario aims to validate the features of Certiflight in Industrial applications and its interoperability with MAIA UTM platform from UpVision.
Like the first validation scenario for volume calculation, this test has been carried out during the month of October, but in this case with ČEZ Distribution 110kV power lines near Čakov village in the Czech Republic. Numerous drone flights have been carried out for the purpose of aerial inspection of power lines and poles. These aerial images (mainly RGB) from UAS are necessary for automatic power line damage checks based on image analysis and the network manager must check the condition of the power lines in some period.
During the test, aerial images of the area were taken, and data categorised as relevant was documented. During post-processing of the imagery, a Digital Surface Model (DSM) was created.
The UpVision UAS was equipped with a UTM box for remote identification and registration of the flight track in the Certiflight interface for report generation.
Results
This validation scenario has been considered as a success by UpVision, the partner in charge of the test scenario.
The customer is the administrator of most of the power lines in the Czech Republic. They appreciated especially the flight logbook generated with all flights data and visualization of the authenticated tracking with reports based on the information generated by CertiflightS. For the administrator it is important to have verified evidence that the inspection was carried out in a given place and at a given time.
Jakub Karas
About the Certiflight validation campaign
For more information about the Certiflight validation camapaign, please visit the Validation page.