The drone revolution in inspection tasks

In recent years, the payload capacity of rotary-wing drones has diversified their use in different industries, allowing them to be equipped with various types of sensors: RGB, thermal, multispectral, night vision, among others.

For inspection tasks, due to their robustness, stability, and operational safety, the Matrice 300 RTK and Matrice 30 Series drones stand out, as they offer optimized development for these types of functions. In the case of the Matrice 300 RTK, its Zenmuse H20 Series sensors provide a powerful camera with up to 200x zoom, a wide-angle camera, and a laser rangefinder with a maximum range of up to 1200 meters. Additionally, it features a thermal sensor for the H20T and a high-definition night vision sensor for the H20N. Meanwhile, the Matrice 30 Series offers two versions with integrated sensors: the Matrice 30 with a wide-angle camera, zoom, plus a laser rangefinder, and the Matrice 30T, which incorporates a thermal sensor.

Both drones operate on the revamped DJI Pilot 2 planning software, which offers an interesting range of options allowing users to plan different flight paths, assigning image or video capture functions for each defined waypoint (either in the same flight or in the app). This enables these missions to be saved for subsequent flights, thus achieving multitemporal capture of a structure of interest.

Fig 1. DJI Pilot Interface on Matrice 300 RTK

The images shown below illustrate a practical flight carried out with the Matrice 300 RTK system under the railway bridge crossing the Maipo River. A panoramic capture was performed of the existing structures, which are subject to deterioration of their components due to seismic activity, weather, lack of maintenance, the railway's own load, among other impacts.

Fig 2. Matrice 300 RTK flight and trajectory view for inspecting a point of interest in DJI Pilot 2

Fig 3. High-resolution photographs and videos captured