How Hoverscape (AUS) is using Drone Harmony to inspect cooling towers and more
February 3, 2021
Danny Elassad is Chief Remote Pilot at the Australian company Hoverscape. He uses Drone Harmony for his complex inspection projects. In this interview he shares his experiences from his work and its challenges.
Drone Harmony: For which projects do you use Drone Harmony?
Danny Elassad: Here at Hoverscape, we use Drone Harmony for nearly all of our complex asset inspections, whether it be cell towers, power stations, bridges, or even roof inspections. One of our larger-scale projects was an external model of a cooling tower at a power station. Having a 3D model of such a large and dangerous to inspect asset would save the inspectors so much time onsite, and using Drone Harmony made flight planning this asset a breeze.
Cooling tower inspection mission planning in DH Mobile
How much time do you need for planning and executing the mission?
Danny Elassad: Since Drone Harmony has a web based flight planner along with its mobile app based version, I am able to flight plan my mission from my desk in a matter of minutes, save the plan, then run the mission while in the field. This saves me valuable time in the office and while onsite.
Setting up at the inspection site
What did using Drone Harmony, enable for this project?
Danny Elassad: Using Drone Harmony allowed me to achieve consistent flight lines and the required overlap to present the client with a model of the requested resolution and detail. And being able to repeat the flights as need be for future inspections.
Inspection of the resulting tower model in the software of Trendspek, a Drone Harmony partner
What are the challenges that you are facing when performing such work?
Danny Elassad: To be honest, most of the challenges I face are solved when using Drone Harmony compared to manually piloting the drone, it makes my life so much easier. As long as the obstacles and asset parameters are correct at the flight planning stage, the software does all the hard work. and helps me to be able to come back and visit assets down the track for routine inspections, and still be able to fly the exact same flight lines.
Many thanks, Danny, for this interview. It is very motivating to receive this feedback.
Stephan Nebiker, Professor of photogrammetry, remote sensing, and geoinformatics at the Institute of Geomatics Engineering of FHNW, uses Drone Harmony in bachelor and master photogrammetry classes. He teaches students the processes of digital aerial photogrammetry. We were invited to talk with him. Stephan, please introduce yourself. I am a photogrammetry, remote sensing, and geoinformatics professor...
Guillaume Jouvet, Senior researcher in the Department of Geography of the University of Zurich, uses Drone Harmony’s terrain-aware data acquisition for research, monitoring, and mapping of the motion of glaciers in Greenland and Switzerland. We were invited to talk with him. Guillaume, what is your research about? As a mathematician and a glaciologist, I’m working...
