Drones Used To Inspect Bridges

Drones – they seem to be an invasion of privacy for some, not to mention being a possible cause for disaster at places like airports, which led to the very real possibility of requiring one to register your drone with the government upon purchase. Other than capturing awesome shots from up in the air, are there any other kinds of uses that one can utilize a drone for? Shafer Kine & Warren, a Lenexa-based engineering firm, has announced that it will be working alongside University of Missouri-Kansas City professors to manufacture drones whose primary purpose would be to inspect the structural integrity of bridges.

The future of bridge inspections might rely on a tethered drone system if the project takes off, and it will surely help reduce the risk of human injuries as well as possible deaths. After all, bridge inspection, traditionally speaking, would require workers to make use of scaffolding, extension ladders or harnesses in order to gain access to various areas of a bridge so that they can perform an inspection on that particular sector. A drone knows no fear, although does this mean that bridge inspectors will be out of a job soon if such a drone is super effective?

This drone will be tethered to a gas generator and comes with a battery backup, where it will be outfitted with a camera, sending recorded footage to a memory card while broadcasting what it ‘sees’ to monitors on the ground, in addition to a pair of goggles. A new test run for these drones are said to happen some time next year.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Robots
Tags: Drones