How to Implement a Drone Asset Inspection Program

Drones simplify, improve, and lower the costs of asset inspection, gradually becoming a standard tool in the energy, telecom, mining, and oil & gas industries.

The benefits of implementing a drone asset inspection program are undeniable: simplified access to assets at height, faster inspection times, lower inspection costs, and richer condition data.

Learn how to automate asset inspection with drones.

How to Launch a Drone Asset Inspection Program

An effective drone inspection program requires not just the best hardware, but also the right strategy for embedding it in existing workflows and measuring the adoptions’ impacts.

Follow these steps to launch a drone inspection program that supports your long-term strategic goals:

1. Ensure that all stakeholders are on board
2. Choose a suitable drone model(s)
3. Get up to date on drone regulations
4. Calculate the program costs
5. Estimate the return on investment
6. Start workforce training
7. Develop standard operating procedures

1. Secure Buy-In

For a successful drone inspection program, you need the active participation and support of all stakeholders:

• Key decision-makers, like the company’s management, shareholders, or asset owners

• Inspection and maintenance workforce, like field engineers, NDT technicians, and other technicians

Chances are that your idea will run into some degree of resistance due to general fear of change, misunderstanding of benefits, and cost concerns. Inspection personnel may need the most convincing. “Once exposed/educated on the tool [drones], the responses have been mixed from the NDT technicians, or visual inspectors, themselves because it’s alien to them.” Osprey President, Courtland Penk shared. “The maintenance planners, the schedulers, and management are all very keen and interested because they see the value in reducing costs.”

We suggest following these steps to overcome adoption resistance:

• Personalize the need. List the benefits that each stakeholder will receive. For management, it may be cost savings and proactive maintenance. For inspectors — reduced inspection time and improved safety.

• Present possible use cases. Demonstrate case studies, backing them up with measurable results from other companies. Voliro drones, for instance, enable 2.5X faster data collection than conventional NDT methods, saving up to 24 days of work.

• Give hardware a test drive. Different drones are better suited for different tasks – land surveying, contact-based work, or navigation through confined spaces. Get a demo from several drone companies. Get a full demo from drone providers. You may also consider a drone subscription service. This way you can do a proof-of-concept flight without having to buy the drone.

Don’t lose hope if skeptics don’t become supporters right away. Engage with the most eager adopters first and then enlist them to help persuade the hesitant staff.

2. Evaluate Different Drone Models

The choice of commercial inspection drones is huge. You’ve got plenty of companies offering

general-purpose drones at a good price. Some also include specialized payloads or rugged designs for all-weather flight missions. Others — HD camera setup and autonomous modes to fly photogrammetry missions. Many enterprise drones have a large battery capacity, allowing longer flight time and higher weight pickup, but also a higher price tag.

Non-destructive testing drones, like Voliro, in turn, come with a selection of mountable payloads for performing ultrasonic testing, dry film thickness measurements, or eddy current testing on assets of any size and geometry.

Specialized indoor inspection drones include more advanced navigation sensing technology to ensure safe cruising through narrow areas with poor connectivity. Such models also include night vision and thermal cameras, plus auxiliary lights for better view.

Mapping drones include purpose-built photogrammetric payloads for capturing high-resolution photos and can autonomously fly repeatable missions for 3D asset modeling projects.

To choose the optimal inspection drone for your use case, consider these three factors:

• Navigation experience: Compare the battery life, flight time, and data transmission range of different models. For some use cases, you may want models with in-built hardware redundancies or the ability to navigate in GPS-denied environments. Likewise, many newer drone models include AI-assisted flight modes and automated flight mission creation or duplication. Both features ease the learning curve and minimize the risks of hardware damage or loss.

• Camera setup: Check what type of imagery technology is available on board. Modern inspection drones have an array of sensors, ranging from HD image cameras, thermal sensors, and specialized photogrammetry cameras among other gizmos. Some cameras are stationary. Others are interchangeable, offering greater versatility.

• Payloads: Likewise, inspection drones can be mounted with an array of payloads, ranging from NDT probes and gas sniffers to megaphones or delivery baskets. Check if the payload platform has an open design i.e., allows you to add third-party options and not just OEM-supplied tools. Examine the probe’s weight and how it affects the flight time.

To get the right gear, read drone reviews and compare several models for your use case. Some companies specialize in building drones for wind farm inspections. Other manufacturers build exceptional drones for telecom asset inspection. Niche players often offer more specialized drone models.

3. Get Up to Date on Drone Regulations

Compliance is the key part of a successful drone asset inspection program. The regulations will vary depending on the region and drone configuration.

In the EU, drone operators don’t require specialized authorization if they fly visual line of sight (VLOS) missions at an altitude of 120 meters in non-restricted areas. Beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) missions, however, require authorized hardware. Drones that weigh more than 25 kg and fly beyond line of sight, above 120 m, or in hazardous areas need additional authorization and certification under EU 2019/945 and EU 2019/947.

The Federal Aviation Administration in the US allows pilots to deploy drones weighing less than 55 pounds (24.9 kg), including for commercial and business purposes as long as they register the drone with them and receive a FAA pilot certification. If you’re bringing in a drone from another country, the U.S. authorities require you to follow the same rules plus get a foreign aircraft permit 15 days before operations begin.

Additionally, extra compliance requirements may apply to specialized drone payloads. For example, if you want to perform a storage tank inspection, the probe has to be compliant with applicable ISO or EN standards. Usually, drone manufacturers can guide you in this area.

4. Estimate The Program Costs

Estimating the TCO of running the drone asset inspection program can be a bit tricky as you have fixed (one-time) and variable (ongoing) costs.

Fixed costs include:

• Initial hardware purchase costs — drone(s) and payload(s)
• Workforce training costs, subject to the course duration and grade level

Variable costs include:

• Ongoing maintenance — drone repairs, spare part replacements, extra software or hardware updates
• Equipment insurance

The above should give you a rough ballpark of the program costs. Opting for a drone subscription instead of a one-time equipment purchase can save you money in the long run. Firstly, you avoid obsolete equipment and don’t have to budget extra for maintenance. Secondly, drone subscriptions also include extra bonuses.

For example, with a Voliro T subscription you get access to the drone and a selection of available NDT payloads, plus 3-day pilot training, all-cover insurance, annual maintenance, and on-demand repairs. And you’ll be the first to test and try our new payloads, like the first-in-its-class Pulsed Eddy Current payload for corrosion detection under coatings.

5. Calculate the Return on Investment

Although asset inspection using drones initially assumes expenses, the ROI is quick to follow in the form of various operational improvements.

Drones can bring gains in:

• Inspection time: Conduct thorough inspections in less time. Holcim inspected a cement kiln 4X faster, while also collecting 3X more wall thickness measurement points.

• Operating efficiencies: Run leaner operations with fewer people on the ground. Bouygues, for instance, inspected 10+ transmission towers per day with just one operator.

• Cashflow: Save money on commissioning extra access equipment. Voliro T saved one customer 615 m3 of scaffolding and 400 working hours on scaffolding construction.

• Uptimes: Test heated, moving, just painted, or hazardous assets so no asset shutdown is required. This way, Voliro T saves at least 2 weeks of downtime by not taking down assets.

The advantages don’t end there. Inspection drones allow more frequent asset inspection, allowing teams to capture small defects before they turn into leaks, emissions, or corrosion. Thus you reduce costs for mitigation, repairs, and possible fines.

With all the savings, you can reinvest that money on more innovative asset management practices: additional drones, advanced sensors, and 3D digital twins for real-time monitoring.

6. Start Pilot Training

Drone companies also offer pilot training, combining theory and practice. Training can be at the company’s facility, on your site, or fully remote. Some entry-level online piloting courses are free. In other cases, you gain access to an academy or on-site training as part of thesubscription service.

Voliro offers 3 days of on-site pilot training with each subscription. Wingtra offers a 1-2-day course as a standalone package. With the Skydio Academy, you can learn in 4-8 hours self-paced, or during 4 days with an instructor.

Additionally, plenty of drone training organizations offer professional courses and workshops,like DARTdrones, Dronemasters Academy, Drone Acamedy by Southern Connecticut University, and Pilot Institute among others. The cost also varies: DARTdrones charges $1490, Dronemasters bills €158-207 for two-hour lessons and Pilot Institute offers both free and paid online lessons (up to $199).

7. Develop Standard Operating Procedures

Just like any other program, drone asset inspection requires systematic documentation of established best practices and procedures. The two important documents to create are an operations manual and a work method statement.

Operations Manual (Ops Manual) describes how to ensure safe and successful flight missions. It should outline the key steps, policies, and processes each pilot must follow before, during, and after the flight. These should cover safety protocols, regulatory requirements, data collection steps, and compliance measures. It’s also a good idea to include templates for effective inspection planning, execution, and reporting, plus regularly update the document as your acumen improves.

Work Method Statement (WMS) describes how to do a particular type of drone inspection according to selected standards. For example, ultrasound testing of wall thickness or lighting protection system testing. A standard WMS outlines the flight scope (what’s included and what’s not), mission guidelines, the type of data to be collected, and mitigation steps if anything goes awry. WMS aligns stakeholder expectations and provides a measurable benchmark to define if drone missions were successful.

Operating standards, coupled with a systematic approach to project management, will ensure the success and safety of the drone program, while also establishing proper record-keeping for compliance purposes.

Conclusion

Drone technology is paving the way for more efficient asset inspection programs. Thanks to lesser prep efforts and faster inspection times, your program can cover never-before inspected assets (like large over-water structures or fire suppression rings on tall chimneys) and support new inspection scenarios: at-height NDT testing, thermal pipeline scans for signs of leaks, or regular lighting protection system tests.

Drone subscriptions also make it easier to experiment with several different use cases without financially committing to expensive equipment or supporting data processing software. Test drive Voliro omnidirectional drone in the field together without pilot trainers to better understand its suitability for your business.