Drones Innovation Community

Highlights from the May community meeting:

The most recent Innovation Community meeting featured a talk from Dr Vidyadhar Peesapati titled “Condition Monitoring of High Voltage Assets”.

Vidyadhar gave a very interesting presentation on his work within the High Voltage (HV) labs in the Ferranti Building on North Campus. A recent investment in the HV facility through EPSRC investment means that it is state of the art and will be relocated to the MECD building when that opens next year.

The talk outlined the research carried out by Vidyadhar since he joined the University. He summarised his work in the HV lab including the design and testing of HV systems along with the application of 3D numerical modelling. The technical challenges of the current national power network were outlined relating to an increasing demand on resources and supply of electricity now expected from the network. This is complicated by the age of the assets employed which are all reaching their end-of-life. He highlighted that with increased demand on these networks, the need for understanding possible mechanisms for failure across the system is of great importance.

The successful application of drones to reduce the necessity of human assessment of assets on live networks was discussed. This comes with inherent complications, however, when you consider the high voltages involved, where failure of drones close to HV assets may cause more problems than it solves. A YouTube movie entitled ‘Drones v Lightning’ carried out in the lab can be accessed here.

Discussion after the meeting centred on whether the community could be expanded to include autonomous vehicles and it was agreed that this seemed like a sensible idea.

The attendees were also asked for any pertinent information that they would like included on a survey of research interests and facilities available within the community. There was a general feeling that asking if people would be interested in hosting or attending training sessions on the safe use of drones for researchers occurring possibly once or twice a year would be advantageous.

February community meeting: 

At the February meeting, the community discussed:

• The Membership of the community
• Current competitions and funding opportunities
• RLP workshops that may be of interest

Members spent the majority of time networking with colleagues to discuss collaboration opportunities. 

Two questions raised to the community regarded:

1. Whether it would be advantageous to invite the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to come to a future meeting as a showcase of the breadth of UAV activity at the University.
2. If there is enough interest in UAV at the University now to justify applying for funding for dedicated UAV technicians. 

Please let us know your thoughts. 

Slides presented at the meeting are available below: