Data acquisition and monitoring of solar farm installations using battery powered unmanned aerial vehicles
Remote analytics specialist, H3 Dynamics is providing a new robotic data acquisition and analysis service that can be used for the autonomous monitoring of large solar farms. The service has been made possible through a partnership programme H3 Dynamics has entered into with Sitemark, a specialist AI-analytics company from Belgium.
This recently struck partnership combines the DBX drone-in-a-box robots from H3 Dynamics with visual & thermal analytics systems from Sitemark to automate and scale up remote monitoring operations in large solar farm installations. Sitemark’s software has so far been deployed by Total, Bouygues, EDF, Engie and Orix to inspect over 30,000 ha of solar PV parks in 35 countries.
Designed as the “eyes and ears” of solar farm owners and operators, the DBX robot can be deployed permanently at solar based energy installations to track solar farm construction progress and identify any degradation in solar panels as well as providing on-site security.
“The unique combination of Sitemark Fuse and H3 Dynamics’ DBX will change the way data is captured and processed throughout the entire lifecycle of solar power assets from initial site clearance and construction operations through to the ongoing stable energy producton phase”, says Michiko Lloyd, CEO of Sitemark.
Initially started up during 2015 in Singapore, H3 Dynamics services clients globally from its main locations in Austin, Singapore and Paris.
The remote automatic inspection of solar farms is just one application for the company’s data acquisition technology. The company is also automating inspection tasks across smart cities, precision agriculture, water infrastructure and ports.
It is achieving these aims with constant investment in development of the associated technology and last month it announced the DBX G7, an agnostic Drone-in-a-Box platform capable of automating drones from any manufacturer, and deploying expert analytics from any developer.
Now, H3 Dynamics is scaling autonomous analytics services using battery drones prior to introducing new hydrogen technology as a fuel source for its unmanned aerial vehicles and thus making them capable of longer range and heavier payloads than could be achieved with existing battery technology. The company will enable autonomous hydrogen air cargo as a second step and scale to manned aviation as a final step.
According to Taras Wankewycz, H3 Dynamics’ CEO, in the wake of Covid-19, the company is shifting the global drone industry towards a system of working based on open and remote operations using telecommunications.
“Our goal is to provide the world’s best data services from specialist vendors all over the world, available at any of our DBX installations globally,” he says.
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