PrecisionHawk Using Artificial Intelligence for Drone Data Analysis
Drone services company PrecisionHawk launches new analysis products for the energy industry that use artificial and machine intelligence.

Drone services company PrecisionHawk today launched a new product—PrecisionAnalytics Energy—that uses artificial and machine intelligence to automate analysis of its aerial data. PrecisionAnalytics Energy is an aerial mapping, modeling, and inspection platform that can be used to inspect infrastructure such as oil wellpads and utility towers and can cut customer costs by up to 80 percent while yielding more precise inspections, the company said.


“By working closely with so many enterprise clients during the data capture phase, we have learned a tremendous amount about what they need to be successful. Our customers have consistently told us that they need a more efficient way to inspect their assets and analyze data. PrecisionAnalytics is that solution,” said PrecisionHawk CEO Michael Chasen.


PrecisionAnalytics Energy consists of five distinct products: Distribution, Transmission, Wind, Solar, and Oil and Gas. 


Distribution is a cloud-based system that uses machine learning to automate the identification of power distribution poles and component damage. It cross-references the uploaded imagery against distribution pole data and flags issues, producing a collection of imagery prioritized by asset health.


Transmission can be used as an alternative to helicopter inspections, cutting costs by up to 28 percent. The platform applies machine vision to identify areas of concern such as cracked insulators, corrosion or structural issues, and aggregates collected data to provide infrastructure statistics, vegetation maps, detailed views, and historical record keeping.


Wind has already reduced climbs on wind turbines by 50 percent and cut inspection costs by 80 percent. The platform can identify issues such as leading-edge corrosion, lightning strike damage, small cracks and wearing, gel coat degradation, and UV radiation damage on an entire fleet or a particular blade.


Solar can reduce inspection time either by ground or aerial manned/unmanned vehicles by up to 90 percent and identify up to 10 times as many issues while predicting future outages. Using machine learning, the platform detects issues such as cell-level defects, bad diodes, reverse polarity, storm damage, rack shifts, and foreign objects. It can also identify up to 10 times as many issues and predict future outages so repairs can be prioritized.


Oil and gas supermajors are using the platform to replace manned aircraft inspections with drone deployments and using machine intelligence to eliminate hours of manual image review. The solution offers leading thermal, infrared and LiDAR sensors, a methane detection laser, and optical gas indicators that can capture asset conditions at a single point of time. Managers can integrate the platform with existing enterprise resource planning systems. 


PrecisionHawk has 150-plus full-time drone pilots and more than 15,000 drone service providers in its drone pilot network. It is also one of the few drone services companies with approval to fly beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). The company's client list includes Fortune 500 companies and market leaders in 150 countries, spanning a range of industries that includes agriculture, energy, insurance, government, and construction.