Cell towers are kinds of electronic communication equipment with mounted antennae. These towers are used for wireless devices like mobile phones to send out signals. These towers need regular inspections for several reasons.
One, you’d need to know whether all the components of the tower are fully functional. Two, you can inspect the towers to discover whether you can make any design improvements to increase functionality.
These inspections are also about assessing potential sites for new cell towers. Drone services are useful for cell tower inspections in more than one way. But, the most useful service offered by drones may be that they offer cell tower aerial imaging.
This in turn reduces dependency on manual labor to carry out periodic inspections. But, most companies today don’t know how and why they should use drones for such inspections. Drones are an important investment and so it follows that it’s important you know how to use them.
Here, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about cell tower inspections and drones.
Aerial Imaging
Aerial imaging is one of the main reasons companies choose to install drones in the first place. If you know how to control a drone, using it for cell tower inspections isn’t all that difficult.
Drones can provide you with high-resolution images of your cell towers. You can use these images to assess the condition of your cell towers. But, it’s important to use the very best drones to pick out the minutiae of your towers’ condition.
FlyGuys drones have impressive lidar features and aerial imaging to help you get the best images. These images are affordable and accessing them is a pretty convenient affair. This helps you save the time and money involved in outsourcing inspections.
An advantage of using drones for cell tower inspections is increased scalability. You don’t have to stick to a set number of towers for your inspection. Instead, you can reduce or increase the number of towers at no extra cost.
All you need to do is to program the inspection route you want to undertake into your drone. Then, your drone will execute your preferred actions repeatedly across all the towers. So, you won’t need to manually change the actions needed at each site when your drone reaches there.
The drone then captures the images you want from the sites you’ve sent it to. The images are clear enough to not need an expert to make sense of them. They allow you to view your tower from more than one angle so you can assess its external condition.
You’d Need a Trained Drone Pilot
A common mistake many companies make is assuming a drone can be operated by anyone. Allowing an inexperienced pilot to operate your drone could damage it for good. You should know that using drones for inspection cannot be trusted by an amateur pilot.
You’d need a well-trained and experienced drone pilot to get the job done. Also, make sure that the pilot you have on board carries an FAA license. There are other areas of drone piloting that your chosen candidate should excel at all well.
These areas include thermography. Thermography involves receiving thermal information from imaging devices. These devices don’t need to get into contact with the surfaces they’re capturing. A drone pilot should be well-versed in this concept if you want them to give you the best images.
Another area that’s important for drone pilots is managing electromagnetic interference. When working around cell towers, such interference is to be expected. So, a pilot should be able to navigate around the tower despite this interference.
Finally, a drone pilot for cell tower inspections should know how to fly around these towers. This may sound like elementary advice, but you’d be surprised how difficult it is to fly around these towers. This is especially true for drones that need to get close to the towers for the best images.
Service Drones Reduce Risk
If you’re debating using service drones, know that these drones reduce risks. Several hazards are associated with prolonged exposure to cell towers. Using staff to perform regular inspections is asking them to compromise their health.
Drones for inspection can be piloted from a remote location. So, no one needs to get anywhere close to a cell tower to feel the impact of cell tower radiation. Besides, there’s the risk of physically damaging the tower for inspection and falling off.
When drones weren’t available, this was the only option left to companies for inspections. Traditional inspection methods had more than the risk of workers falling off towers. It also ran the risk of workers dropping their tools and injuring those below.
With drones, you won’t have to face such risks ever again. The drones are protected from damage through collision and other factors. Also, they’re equipped with real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning technology. This technology allows them to avoid collisions when they’re inspecting cell towers.
Drone Inspections Are More Detailed
Drones are ideal for those that want highly-detailed inspections. Traditional inspection methods like physical inspections had limited scope. This scope was imposed by the cost of such inspections. It was also thanks to the hazards associated with physical inspections.
But, drones allow you to increase the scope of your cell tower inspections. Using drones, you can examine the various aspects of how your towers are functioning. First, you can check whether the tower is working properly in every material respect.
Then, you can assess the impact of your towers on the flora and fauna surrounding them. In this way, you can gain a more comprehensive view of how your towers are performing. The drones you use will give you lots of information that can influence your decisions.
They can give you overlapping footage of your cell towers from various angles. This would give you information with which you could create 3 maps of cell tower sites. Overlapping footage would also be useful when you want to assess new cities to build cell towers.
Conclusion
With these points in mind, you’ll be able to use drones for cell tower inspections in no time. Remember to buy drones from the best companies in the market if you want the best inspection results.
You can program the best drones to collect consistent and accurate inspection data. This data can help you understand the nuances of how to operate and improve your towers.
But, remember that operating these drones is no child’s play. You’ll either need to hire trained pilots or outsource your inspections with drones. After all, drones are a significant investment and shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Once you grow accustomed to using drones, you’ll soon enjoy the benefits they offer. Faster inspection times and low costs are some of the reasons why drones are recommended.
