Skip to main content

Intel wants its fleet of drones to monitor America’s aging, unsafe bridges

Intel Commercial Drones Speed Up US Bridge Inspections

Plenty of people are excited about laying down new high-tech infrastructure to create smart cities. But can cutting-edge technology also be used to keep tabs on existing infrastructure, such as bridges? Intel certainly believes so — and it recently signed a deal with the Minnesota Department of Transportation and Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to prove it. The collaboration will see Intel’s cutting-edge drone technology used to carry out inspections of bridges in the regions.

Since even minor issues such as lane closures on these bridges result in major, costly delays, the hope is that drones will be useful in spotting potential problems before they become serious.

“What people may not know is that majority of U.S. bridges are more than 50 years old, and 10 percent of them are rated structurally deficient or obsolete,” Anil Nanduri, vice president and general manager of the Intel drone team, told Digital Trends. “The process of bridge inspections is a highly manual process and can be dangerous. What we did with the drone technology is supplement that process to save cost, time, and improve accuracy and reliable data.”

Intel

Intel’s Falcon 8+ drones are programmed to fly specific, repeatable flight paths necessary to capture all the required data. While it does this, each drone takes thousands of high-res images. These images can then be viewed as three-dimensional data. Over time, engineers and bridge inspectors can analyze changes, which can then be used for prediction purposes.

At present, Intel is using its technology to inspect the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge, connecting Ohio and Kentucky, and the Stone Arch Bridge in Minnesota. Currently, the drone usage is just part of the manual inspection process and requires drone operators on site to carry out the work. However, Intel believes this will change over time. Long term, the ambition is for drones to be able to carry out more of this work autonomously.

“For this to happen, drones will need to have a level of autonomy and intelligence and advanced flight safety technology built-in so that bridge inspection operations can be executed independently and without the need of a trained commercial drone pilot on site,” Nanduri said.

As impressive as Intel’s work is, it’s not the only example of drones or robotics being used to inspect infrastructure. A four-wheeled robot created by researchers at the University of Nevada is also designed for spotting bridge defects. Meanwhile, the so-called “LineRanger” robot is designed to inspect power lines for potential faults.

Editors' Recommendations

Luke Dormehl
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
U.K. has plans to create aerial drone zone superhighways to contain UAV traffic
Drone Zone

The technology needed to drive delivery drones is already in existence, but laws have yet to catch up. To help take drone technology to the next step of mainstream adoption, the U.K. is currently in the process of establishing what could be the world’s first commercial drone corridor. This airspace will be available to any fully automated drones flying beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS), so long as it doesn’t require specialist hardware and conforms to basic technical regulations.

The unrestricted airspace -- called the “Arrow Drone Zone” -- will be located in the town of Reading, to the west of London, in the Thames Valley. The Drone Zone will be approximately 8 kilometers (5 miles) long and 500 meters (1,640 feet) wide. While it is referred to as a, well, zone for drones, it is technically unrestricted open airspace, meaning that drones and general aviation vehicles (read: airplanes and helicopters) will share the same space.

Read more
Drone deliveries may consume 10 times as much energy as van deliveries in cities
army use lasers power drones drone getty images

Drone-based deliveries have been promised for years now, and are just now starting to (no pun intended) get off the ground. There are plenty of reasons to be excited at the prospect of flying robots bringing your latest online delivery, but one that is frequently mentioned is the idea that drones will remove a certain number of delivery vehicles from the road, leading to a positive environmental impact.

Not so fast, claims a recent study carried out by a researcher at Martin Luther Universitat in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Having run the numbers, Thomas Kirschstein, from MLU’s department of Production and Logistics, thinks drone deliveries could actually wind up consuming a whole lot more energy than alternative vehicular options, especially in dense urban areas. Kirschstein’s simulations suggest that drones could use around 10 times as much energy as electric vans, and significantly more than diesel vans (which use twice the energy of electric vans).

Read more
UPS and CVS will use drones to deliver prescription drugs
UPS, CVS drone delivery for prescriptions

UPS and healthcare company CVS Health will use drones to deliver prescription medicine to the residents of a retirement community in Florida, the companies announced Monday.

UPS subsidiary UPS Flight Forward, which is focused on drone delivery services, will be transporting prescription medicine from a CVS pharmacy to Florida's The Villages, which has around 130,000 residents. By using drones, UPS will be able to quickly deliver time-sensitive medicine, while also maintaining social distancing efforts to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.

Read more