Drone case studies, including Ardenna's machine vision and AI capabilities for image processing of drone based infrastructure inspection. This presentation was delivered at Cambridge Wireless’ event: Drones: The Good, The Bad, The Scary, 12th July 2018, The Bradfield Centre, Cambridge, England ardenna: http://ardenna.com/ Cambridge Wireless: http://cambridgewireless.co.uk/ ExpandAndLaunch: http://expandandlaunch.com/

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Drones and their impact on 19th century technology
A look at partnership, collaboration and combined technologies
July 2018

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Notes
This presentation was delivered at Cambridge Wireless’
event:
• Drones: The Good, The Bad, The Scary
• 12th July, The Bradfield Centre, Cambridge, England
Most of it was delivered verbally with the slides as a
resource, if you want to know more, contact Scott on Twitter
@5c0tt or via LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/scottstonham
Special thanks to:
• Ardenna for providing me with information and material about their Machine Vision + AI approach for drone image analysis on railways
• Cambridge Wireless for inviting me to present at the event
• IHS Markit for insights and charts on market size
• Everyone at the event for their kind comments and questions

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Expectation Reality

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Expectation Reality
Original image redacted –
imagine a picture of Terminator that covers the word
Expectation

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Interesting on their own
But much more when combined

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Source: IHS Markit “Safety Challenges in Operating Drones Beyond the Visual Line of Sight” April 2018

7. expandandlaunch.com July 2018Expanding technology businesses, launching new products and services for the connected world.
Case studies

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Explosion of use cases

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Energy : CyberHawk Flare Tip Inspection Agriculture : ULCRobotics UAV Vineyard Inspection
Security : Nightingale open mine patrol Medical: ZipLine blood delivery Telecoms: Openreach cable drop

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Promise of reduced cost and time, and
improved safety, e.g:
• Drowning
• Poisoning
• Slipping and falling
• Explosion
Maritime
Enclosed space
Inspections
Image source: Top: Metalcare Solutions Asia Pte Ltd. and Flyability. Right Xamen Technologies
Many challenges still to overcome, including:
• Regulation: Trust, Fragmentation
• Solution: Diversity, Quality
• Tech: Navigation, Sensors, Batteries, Power

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• RECOMMS (Remote Evaluation of Coatings and Corrosion on
Offshore Marine Structures and Ships)
• Join project between Akzo Nobel, Barrier Group, Bureau
Veritas, Drone Ops, Hempel Paints A/S, Marine Technical Limits and
a major oil company.
• Leveraging VR for training operators
• Cost savings estimated to be between $40,000-$90,000 per
inspection
• Developing to address off-shore wind turbines with new payloads for
steel thickness and paint coating measurements
RECOMMS – enclosed space inspection
Jean-François Segretain, Technical Director, Bureau Veritas, Marine & Offshore, said: ‘While a lot
of work has been done with drones nothing yet released has led to drones meeting specific
requirements for marine classification close up surveys. This project addresses the specific needs
of our survey requirements and other inspections.’

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Rail Inspection
Drones + Machine Vision + AI
by ardenna

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Safety and regulation driven business case
• 32,500 miles of track
• Twice/year inspections
• Line closures
• 6+ months for results
Compulsory, manual activity with high costs, delays and long timescales

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Scale limited by manual
review process of imagery.
Cloud, Machine Vision and AI
technologies selectively
employed to enable scale
and deliver significant
process speed
improvements
Identifying the process pinch-point
+

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Applying AI into drone inspection
In flight & post-flight anomaly detection
and image classification

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Input
• 40,000 images per
100 miles of flight
Processing
• Geolocation: Image MetaData, GIS data
• Sort, align 1000s of images
• Component detection and identification
• Anomaly detection and classification
Output
• Reports
• Work orders
Significant process improvement
Drone flight.
Typically 900 miles/day. Minimal interruption to service.
Time to process: 5 hours

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Applying focused expertise across
new verticals

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• Rapid growth in drone ecosystem diversity will continue, but pace may slow due to
current technology limits, legislation and market consolidation
• Advances in these technologies will kick the ecosystem into new growth
o Battery & fuel cell
o Navigation systems
o Payload capabilities
o Connectivity
o AI (onboard and real-time cloud)
• AI will be further deployed to spur autonomy and scale, improving ROI models
• Definition of line-of-sight will become more elastic
• Solutions will be developed and tested in niche markets, but will expand rapidly
after proven success
• Increased synergy between autonomous vehicles and drones
• Multi-mission operators will emerge
Final thoughts

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Thank you
Scott Stonham
scott@expandandlaunch.com
www.expandandlaunch.com
July 2018
Expanding technology businesses, launching new products and services for the connected world.