With regulators focusing on increased employee safety at the same time consumers are clamoring for better network coverage, most major wireless providers are at least looking into the possibility of using drones to inspect cellular towers. Cell phone tower inspection report sheets only specify what checks need to be done to towers. Since they don’t spell out the way those checks have to be performed, drones are quickly becoming one of the more popular ways to do so.
Telecommunications firms that want to deploy camera drone inspection equipment will want to first examine their current technical position. They’ll need to invest in the same kind of technology that energy industry executives have been deploying in their sectors.
Developing a drone inspection methodology
Major wireless firms, as well as independent tower operators, are normally held to a specific set of standards regardless of their parent companies. They have to take field strength measurements for quality of service reasons as well as perform regular structural integrity checks. As the emergence of 5G technologies puts a renewed strain on existing infrastructure, these companies can use consumer-grade camera drone equipment to perform these services without requiring human beings to climb towers.
Some enterprise-level operations have elected to work with third-party drone tower inspection services, which already have equipment in place to take on these tasks. Most of these services also employ skilled technicians who are trained to work with a specific type of drone inspection device, which means they’re normally able to provide consistent results irrespective of how many times a particular test is performed.
A majority of telecommunications providers will more likely want to contract with these kinds of services rather than doing it alone. That being said, there are paths to developing an internal list of best practices for drone pilot inspectors. Managers who find themselves dealing with this kind of directive will want to talk to their field staff about their experiences filing reports using the current methods. If multiple personnel consider a given section of the reporting protocol to be unclear, then it’s time to remove it. Most companies will want to strip their forms down to the minimum required by regulators. This will help currently inexperienced staff with drone inspection technology to speed with it.
They’ll also want to get acquainted with all relevant flight codes that might impact their operations.
Ensuring that drone inspectors are operating legally
Mobile operators in the United States have to follow certain FAA rules, which require drones of a specific size to be licensed. Those who are performing these tests in India will want to reach out to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, which can provide the required documents. Recent legislation requires mobile tower inspectors and all other drone pilots to work with a special Drones Directorate board, which provides these types of licenses.
Smaller regional tower owners, especially those who lease their equipment out to larger companies, won’t be able to work their way through this process. Perhaps a better solution would be to only invest in drone equipment that’s licensed by rule. This gear is small enough that it doesn’t require pilots to have any sort of specific license or file any forms. Nevertheless, it’s still large enough to work for those checking the structural integrity of towers.
Once managers are sure that their drones are flyable, they’ll want to insist on a series of pre-flight checks. Drones must be inspected before the flight to ensure that their batteries are charged and their propellers are mounted before taking any images. Calibration of both the onboard compass and the system’s display terminal is also a good idea for asset inspectors who want to be sure that their measurements will be useful.
While this might seem like a ton of work, taking a few moments to sort out all of these considerations will help to reduce headaches when inspectors fly the aircraft in question.
Performing a drone inspection
Assuming that the drone a technician is working with includes a branded mobile app, they’ll be free to enter an interval shooting mode. This eliminates the need to manually press the shutter button and takes images of a cellular asset regularly. In most cases, a 2-5 second interval between shots should suffice.
After the drone has taken off, it will need to fly some distance away from the center of it to avoid interference. More care needs to be taken at higher altitudes to prevent radio-related problems. Keeping a drone inspection aircraft still will help to virtually eliminate this risk.
Field agents can then upload their images to a central database, which may be tied to an organization’s existing inspection report platform. Companies that have done their best to eliminate obsolete sections of these forms and streamline the reporting process will find themselves in a good position to take advantage of digitized workflows.
Remember, though, that inspections are only part of the story. Once drones start to photographic potential areas of trouble, telecommunications companies will have to dispatch teams to repair them or risk continued quality of service problems. The future looks bright for the industry, however, since increased inspections can help tower owners to locate potentially unsafe conditions before they cause problems.
