{"id":3713,"date":"2020-02-12T05:13:25","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T10:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/?p=3713"},"modified":"2024-07-03T08:33:57","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T08:33:57","slug":"how-self-driving-car-tech-could-help-drones-monitor-power-lines-to-prevent-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/how-self-driving-car-tech-could-help-drones-monitor-power-lines-to-prevent-wildfires\/","title":{"rendered":"How self-driving car tech could help drones monitor power lines to prevent wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"
Source : Fast Company<\/strong><\/h6>\n

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California has more than 150,000 miles of overhead power lines. Drones searching for downed lines could inspect the system a lot faster than human counterparts and alert crews to where they\u2019re needed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Last year, California had its most destructive and deadliest wildfire year on record. Increasingly dry, warm, and windy weather conditions wrought by climate change are a big reason why. But the immediate cause is often\u00a0power lines<\/a>: Downed lines that come into contact with nearby trees can create a spark that spreads into bigger fires. So far, the (very inconvenient) solution has been to just shut off electricity entirely during days with high wind. But a Bay Area company says they have another answer, and it uses the same technology that lets self-driving cars \u201csee\u201d their surroundings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Quanergy is most well known for building the LiDAR sensors that help power autonomous vehicles. LIDAR works like radar, but with light waves instead of radio waves. These waves bounce back from an object (like a person or another car) to the sensor, determining how far away that object is. That information then creates a 3D map of an autonomous car\u2019s environment. Since this technology is, at its core, a 3D mapping tool, Quanergy says it can also be used to map power lines, potentially helping utility companies inspect their miles and miles of lines for encroaching trees, or finding downed wires before they start a blaze.<\/p>\n

California has more than 150,000 miles of overhead power lines. That\u2019s a lot of ground to cover for human inspectors. \u201cImagine you connect the sensor to a drone, so the drone can fly over a surface\u2014you can fly over hills . . . you can fly over power lines,\u201d says Enzo Signore, Quanergy chief marketing officer. That sensor would create a detailed image, showing the curve of the hanging wires and also nearby obstacles that could be a fire hazard if that wire were to break.<\/p>\n

This could mean power companies could avoid shutting off power for large areas as a safety precaution. \u201cWe need to absolutely come up with a much smarter way, a much more preventative [way],\u201d says Signore. \u201cBy using drones, you can prevent problems from happening because you can actually detect when the problem could become an issue,\u201d like if there\u2019s too much dry vegetation close to the power lines.<\/p>\n

Places in China and Australia have implemented this drone mapping technology, even using it to monitor train tracks for obstacles or repair issues. Signore says some of Quanergy\u2019s drone partners are planning to work with United States power companies soon. Though no companies have signed on yet, some, like California\u2019s PG&E, have\u00a0 already\u00a0expressed interest<\/a>\u00a0in using new tech like drones in their maintenance routines. It seems like something needs to be done, at least until we can bury all those existing power lines underground or simply\u00a0redesign neighborhoods<\/a>\u00a0to survive wildfires.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Source : Fast Company   California has more than 150,000 miles of overhead power lines. Drones searching for downed lines could inspect the system a lot faster than human counterparts and alert crews to where they\u2019re needed. Last year, California had its most destructive and deadliest wildfire year on record. Increasingly dry, warm, and windy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/sdc1.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icaninfotech.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}