Drones4Energy

In this IFD project, we focus on building a collaborative, autonomous, and continuously operating drone system that will be offered to powerline operators to inspect the power grid accurately, frequently, and autonomously.

Project objectives

Energy Harvesting
The project aims at building a light-weight energy harvester to tap energy from the powerline cables to charge the drones without modifying the power grid’s infrastructure.

Artificial Intelligence Algorithms
The project will improve the state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithms to optimize the inspection results thereby it is possible to only store the relevant inspection data on-board of the drone.

Swarm System
The project will reduce the inspection time and improve its accuracy by building a collaborative drone system to fly along the cables to inspect all of the sides of the cables at once.

Harsh environment operations
The project aims at building a resilient drone system that is capable to overcome the electromagnetic interferences of the high-voltage cables on the drone electrical components.