Drone Disruption

A global software development company; IFS is perhaps not the first name that comes to mind when thinking about ground breaking aerospace technology. Yet it is IFS’s strive to find new ways of doing business that has seen it develop a revolutionary aerospace solution for drone operators that puts it front and centre in the innovation stakes.

IFS’s latest breakthrough is the automation of time consuming and often-dangerous power line inspections through integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) into drone technology.

Bas de Vos is Director, IFS Labs. While speaking to Australian Aviation in December, he explained IFS’s mission to inspire their customers led to a ‘light bulb’ moment on the blend of drones, automation and the Internet of Things.
“The light bulb moment came somewhere at the beginning of this year while sitting with some Swedish colleagues, brainstorming,” comments de Vos.
“65% of Sweden is actually forest, and with only 21 people per square kilometre it’s sparsely populated. Combine that with having a climate that sees a lot of autumn and winter storms, the issue (of damaged power lines) is very real. It felt like the best idea for us to build our proof of concept on this issue, as it’s concrete and real.”
This ethos, to identify a real issue and then work with industry to find a solution, is part of the IFS culture. With a mission to research what impact disruptive technologies can have on existing processes, IFS Labs exists to create true innovation.

This innovation comes in the way of a solution where the IoT bridges the traditional gap between drone and human operator. This has resulted in a fully automated solution that is able to operate in environments not conducive to life.

“In that context, we’ve seen that many businesses are experimenting with drone technology, so for us this felt like the right point to pick this up. Although there is risk that research into future innovations ends up being vague and abstract, at IFS Labs we try to make things concrete and real.”

Internet of Things:

As existing technologies evolve, the IoT is finding its way into an ever-increasing number of every day activities. From smart fridges to vehicle computers, airliners to office appliances, the IoT is becoming second nature.

In automating the aerial inspection of power lines, IFS saw a potential for a practical, measurable use of the IoT. Through a fleet of drones, IFS’s IoT applications allow operators to reduce costs, improve efficiency and ultimately provide a critical service that is very difficult to sustain using humans beings.

But the benefits for the IoT in aviation aren’t limited to drone technology alone. Jeff Pike is IFS’s Head of Strategy and Marketing. He commented that the IoT offers excellent synergies within the greater aviation sector.

“The aviation industry is just one of the many industries witnessing the benefits of IoT technology. A combination of cheaper sensors, powerful data processing systems and machine learning has enabled organisations to make their processes smarter and maintenance more efficient. Health Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS) are an example of this, using IoT sensors to measure aircraft safety and performance.”

For example, modern commercial airliners have IoT enabled systems that continually monitor the performance of the airliner; ensuring issues are detected before they become a serious problem. Today, this has been taken a step further, with data from one aircraft that has detected a fault being used to analyse an entire fleet for the same problem.

“To put it into context, in the 1980s, the number of detectable faults on a Boeing 767 was 9,000. Now, intelligent sensors on a Boeing 787 can detect 45,000 faults, five times as many as 30 years ago. This information can then be processed by asset management solutions and integrated with workforce management to schedule relevant maintenance tasks – vastly improving efficiency.”

Civil aviation isn’t the only sector to embrace IoT integration, with military applications yielding great returns also. This includes the F-35 of which Australia has a future reliance.

“An F-35 jet has internal and external sensors that send real-time data to a ground-based logistics support solution, which then seeks to optimise the end-to-end support chain. Hours can be saved in the maintenance bay by making sure the right equipment is available in the right place at the right time, so engineers are prepared for the task in hand, ready to return the aircraft to operational status in the shortest possible time,” explains Pike.

The Human Factor:

Drones are becoming mainstream around the world, with the consumer market for drones proving very lucrative. With Australia’s relatively relaxed legislation, which does not require any license for drones under 25kg, they are an increasingly familiar sight in local airspace.

However, with their increased popularity, comes increased scepticism, largely focused on the safety of drones, and ensuring responsible usage. This concern was fuelled in 2016 where a series of near misses caused worldwide headlines.

This included an incident where a British Airways aircraft was believed to have been hit by a drone at low altitude, while in a separate incident an Airbus A320 passed within 20 metres of a drone over London.

But IFS’s use of drones is designed for safe, responsible and practical commercial usage; rather than the burgeoning consumer market. Jeff Pike explains, “There are emerging and safer applications for drones in aviation. Drones are flying off the shelves in the consumer market, but the potential exists for real advantages in maintenance operations. Easy Jet is already doing this in the commercial space.”

For their part, Easy Jet has embraced drone technology, integrating IoT applications into these vehicles to perform critical maintenance inspections through scanning and assessing aircraft during routine downtime.

This kind of usage, as well as IFS’s power-line inspection concept, may lead people to wonder if a drone can really perform this kind of highly critical and specialised maintenance work to the same level as a human being.

“In my opinion you can look at this in two ways,” comments Bas de Vos. “Humans are better than drones at dealing with anomalies that the drone or human is not supposed to look for. For example, I’m running a power line inspection, but I see that a river nearby is flooding, which could potentially endanger the support poles of the power line. If you don’t explicitly instruct the drone to look at floods it will not look at it. But, drones are much better in completing their assignment as well as repetitive analysis…The challenge is to strike an optimum balance between the two, enabling organisations to maximise maintenance efficiency.”

It is this balance that IFS is championing when developing its concept vehicles. The company ethos is to inspire customers to go beyond today’s use of business applications and other technologies to offer true benefits that complement the human factor of a business.

“One of the biggest benefits of drone technology is that it can be deployed where humans can’t, usually hostile or unpleasant environments,” comments Jeff Pike.

“Witness the recent unexpected stopover of the Virgin Atlantic flight in Goose Bay, where temperatures in November dropped to below -15° centigrade overnight. These are untenable temperatures for human maintenance engineers, but it would be a situation where maintenance drones could have been deployed to investigate or execute the repair.”

To this end, drones are already being trialled in a number of hostile environments, where risk to human life makes manned missions both dangerous and costly.

“In the UK, automated drones are being trialled for maintenance use in Nuclear Fusion reactors. The UK Atomic Energy Authority’s R.A.C.E (Remote Applications in Challenging Environments) and a team from Imperial College recently partnered to solve the problem of executing precision maintenance tasks in tiny spaces in a nuclear environment – an area too dangerous for human interaction,” explains Pike.

Proof of Concept:

With an average project time of three to twelve months, IFS has been working on their drone / IoT integration for around nine months. The project is well advanced, and the organisation has recently entered it into a proof of concept stage.

Bas de Vos notes that for IFS, each project is unique and there are no ‘set steps’ to follow. As such, this project has followed a bespoke pathway, customised to its specific outcomes.

“The type of activities (for concept development) include talking and validating our idea with customers, investigating the different technologies involved, storyboarding, prototyping, building the demonstration set and of course, learning to fly the drone,” de Vos outlines.

“We can’t share the story unless we also do it for real, so we also took our drone out to a forest with power lines to do test runs. The results were very positive.”

But there are still many hurdles to overcome; with legislation being one of the biggest barriers for drone applications. Legislation is a particular issue in Sweden, where the concept has real potential due to the dense forest and sparse population.

“Since October, it is no longer legal to fly a drone in Sweden that has a camera on board. Of course, this means that although the issue is real, the drone / IoT solution can’t be implemented yet by clients. I think legislation will resolve itself, but as it goes with such things it will take some time,” comments de Vos.

However global legislation differs significantly, and IFS are acutely aware of opportunity abroad.

“(Australian) companies already trialling delivery of medical supplies in difficult to reach locations. The project is dubbed ‘Angel Drone’ and delivers supplies in congested city centres and remote locations.”

Furthermore, Australia’s military is looking to lead the pack in drone technologies, with unmanned vehicles identified as the future combat vehicles during the Land Forces 2016 event.

The Future:

The future for drone / IoT innovations is limitless, and already today there are more and more examples of the successful integration of these technologies.

From Amazon.com deliveries to oil and gas pipeline analysis, as well as IFS’s own concept for power line inspections, the marriage of these technologies is seeing a high degree of uptake across the world.

IFS is well placed to support customers world-wide who choose to adopt drone technology through integrating IFS applications into drones to meet specific business needs.

“We think we have proven that (the concept) works from an IFS point of view,” comments Bas de Vos. “It should serve as a source of inspiration for our customers. That’s also where the next step would be. IFS can support customers who choose to adopt drone technology by connecting drones to IFS Applications. So, where this first phase was IFS Labs-driven, we would now look at our customers to drive the next phase and of course, support them on their journey.”