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Unmanned and Unmatched: Why Drones Do It Better Now and In The Future

A T&D World Webchat with Cyberhawk CEO Chris Fleming
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10 Oct 2024

Cyberhawk has completed many hundreds of thousands of inspections on industrial assets to date. From the very beginning, these inspections have been able to demonstrate real savings in the millions. Take for example the UK refinery that avoided shutting down, and an FPSO in Ghana that could keep running to power its capital city. Or the US utility that avoided 12 outages over 2 years on a faulty line. 

Drones have fundamentally changed what is possible, but according to Cyberhawk's CEO, Chris Fleming, the next leap forward in inspections won't be down to drones. 

Drones are essentially flying computers. It would be impossible for a human being to control an aircraft with 8 independent rotor blades and maintain its position and aspect with a strong gust of wind. We may think we are flying the drone but really a computer chip is doing all the work. The exponential improvement of computational power means that it won't be too long until drones become completely autonomous and able to perform asset assessment live during flight, with AI running “on the edge.” 

Recently Chis joined T&D World for the third in a series of four sponsored webchats to discuss this vision for the future, and how Cyberhawk fits into it. You can catch up on the full webchat below: