Power Grid Drone Inspection Service
Unlimited Range Enabled by Recharging Off Power Lines
Our Story
While at the University of Washington, we won the largest student entrepreneurship competition in the PNW, the Dempsey Startup Competition, while competing with 174 teams from 23 universities. Before that, we won the UW's Environmental Innovation Challenge.
With experience working for Seattle City Light, Boeing, Palantir, SpaceX, and building drones for the U.S. Air Force and DARPA, we plan to become the premier inspection contractor to assist utilities in managing and preventing faults on their vast networks.
Our Platform
We've built a drone capable of flying continuously for thousands of miles by inductively charging directly off power lines, enabling persistent and precise inspections.
It's designed to carry visual, thermal, and ultrasonic sensors to inspect a variety of maintenance concerns and identify risks to grid infrastructure.
Capabilities We're Building
AI/ML Inspections
We know that your team needs a prioritized list of exceptions and risk assessment, not massive volumes of raw visuals. We have built a preliminary software stack using 3D point clouds of vegetation to identify trees or foliage encroaching on lines. We are building capacity to incorporate more sensor types and utilize machine learning to identify faults and risk automatically.
Delivery
We currently deliver inspection results (.csv) via email. These files contain a list of maintenance action items, including date and time, allowing utilities to streamline their inspection recordkeeping. Photos and 3D models of each concern will be hyperlinked and visible on a browser.
Recharging
Our patent-pending recharging IP enables a drone inspection service that, when fully developed, would allow our system to recharge off an AC powerline of any voltage using inductive charging.
Autonomy
We can currently leverage GPS waypoints for semi-autonomous flight. We’re implementing more autonomy over time for obstacle avoidance and safe recharging.