Drones for Energy (Drones4Energy)

The overarching aim is to develop a system of autonomous collaborative drones which can inspect and be charged from high-voltage power lines.
This will be achieved through the following objectives: 1.Customize the heavyweight powerline harvester that is developed by the project’s partner, Fraunhofer IMS, into a lightweight version. 2.Build an interface between the harvester and the drone’s energy and control systems. 3.Develop software tools for the drone system that can detect live cables and perform autonomous landing and grasp on the cables. 4.Improve the inspection quality by using a collaborative drone system to inspect different sides of the powerline. 5.Increase the inspection efficiency by using machine learning algorithms to define cable’s faults automatically. The objectives will lead to a collaborative, autonomous, and long fly drone system that will be offered to powerline operators to inspect the power grid. In addition, the drone system will be used to lift powerline sensors up to the high-voltage cables. The current high-weight harvester and LoRaWAN are in TRL 6-7 and software: tools, protocols, interfaces, and algorithms are in TRL 3-5. The project’s lightweight harvester will expect to reach TRL 7-8; software will expect to reach TRL 6-8. The expected time to market is two years after the project is completed. The commercial roadmap of the project will be built and developed in parallel with the technical development of the project technical areas of focus in the go-tomarket strategy. The project will create new products, and new knowledge on lightweight energy harvesters and collaborative drone systems in addition to new ways of optimizing inspection of high-voltage power lines. Development of the solutions requires competences from academia, and the energy and network industries. The project supports the use of drones in the public sector thereby aligned with the Danish National Drone Strategy.