Hello All,
I need your help.
I’ve been an assigned an interesting little project by one of my managers, I work in a CCGT Power Station and I’ve been tasked to get ourselves a ‘drone’ for inspecting various assets across the site, we have a couple of large storage tanks which do not have access to their tops, previously we had had somebody in with a quadto inspect them. This option is no longer available so it looks like we will be getting hold of our own. Finding a multirotor to fit the bill is simple enough but there is a twist... There is also a requirement to inspect the internals of large structures, in particular the front face inside our boilers, this provides quite a challenge for a number of reasons, for one they stand 90ft tall and about 26ft wide with a free space of about 20ft behind this face, so quite a tight space to navigate in, secondly there is no light… at all, thirdly they are large metal structures, I’m pretty sure this will have a big effect on radio and video signals transmitting through (and reflecting off) the steel walls of the boiler.
So with that in mind is this achievable? What am I looking at in terms of equipment needed and size? I am clued up with regards to helis and regularly flying them (including 3D) but multirotors are new territory for me, I know the anatomy of one but that’s about it.
It’s under the perception that I will be flying it, like I said previously I have been flying RC helis for over 5 years so im confident that with practise I can nail flying FPV but more importantly I understand that to fly a multirotor as a commercial operation you need a license, however seeing as this is strictly for use within the site perimeter and by an employee of the site will this be necessary?
In terms of cost I don’t have an endless budget but the equipment needs to be easily obtainable. To summarise it looks like I need:
A platform that can video the asset that needs inspecting (gimbal and video camera)
Cannot be excessively big
10-15 minutes of endurance
Low to no light capability (install bright LEDs across the front?)
FPV set up to view inside and around the larger structures
Thanks in advance,
Matt
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