D. Sharoni
UAV-Hive Inc., California, United States
Keywords: Grid Connected Renewables, Nation’s Electric Grid, Defense Airports, Airborne Robotics Inspection, predictive Maintenance
Our approach integrates various technologies into one scalable platform tailored for large-scale utility-solar plants. Four of several innovative integration designs are: 1- UAV’s safety algorithms enabling synchronized fleet of drones in-flight tight formation; 2- Mesh wireless telecommunications to boost network range/data-quality; 3-Create and analyze 3D Model scanned by 6 synchronized UAVs squadron; 4- Decarbonized dispatchable ground-station mounted on a solar-powered electric vehicle. Utilizing this innovation, an entire inspection mission completes at near real-time at flight speeds of >20mph with the platform ready to be immediately dispatched to the next mission. O&M benefits from this solution’s massive & redundant inspection dataset processed by Machine Learning analytics & predictive maintenance algorithms in real-time. That continuously improve photovoltaic production and reduce maintenance cost. The utility solar photovoltaic site will benefit by an estimated 10-20% production increase, while the 6 UAV inspection squadron benefits by >80% cost reduction. These results, compare to the current state-of-the-art of a single drone approach that takes 6 times longer, requires several battery swaps, has inefficient data generation and slow cloud-based processing.