The Advantages and Challenges of Using Multi-Drones for Utility Solar Farm Inspections
Periodic thermal inspections are essential for detecting anomalies in utility solar farms and maintaining optimal power generation. In recent years, drone-based inspections have become mainstream, replacing traditional manual inspections with handheld equipment.
3 Key Advantages of Multi-Drone Inspections
The latest advances in autonomous solar farm inspections enable multiple drones that work in tandem to inspect large-scale, utility-level solar farms quickly. Rather than relying on a single manually piloted drone, maintenance personnel can deploy a multi-drone system, complete with AI-powered software, to safely and efficiently inspect the entire farm.
1. Faster Inspections
It shouldn’t come as a surprise: multiple drones working together to inspect a large-scale solar farm take less total inspection time than traditional single-drone methods. According to PV Magazine, a single UAV can inspect a solar farm of up to 20 MW in a single day. For larger solar farms, this means that using a single drone could require multiple days of inspection work, leading to higher labor, travel, and accommodation costs.
With more efficient and faster inspections, you can detect issues faster and help maintain optimal performance for your solar farms. The investment in additional drones and autonomous drone software quickly pays for itself after a few inspections.
2. Cost-Effectiveness
Multi-drone inspections require upfront investments in software and hardware. However, the long-term savings in labor costs, minimizing the risk of human error, and detecting issues sooner quickly create a significant ROI.
With multi-drone inspections, a single pilot can use multiple drones at once to collect the required data for inspection. This latest advancement reduces human error, saves labor hours, and ultimately lowers operating expenses.
3. Consistent, High-Quality Data Collection
Autonomous drone software allows drones to capture data consistently for each solar panel, which doesn’t change when multiple drones are deployed. Consistency in drone data collection allows for advanced data analytics and reliably accurate inspection results. Drones equipped with the latest thermal cameras also increase the quality of captured data.
The result: solar farm owners and their O&M service teams can make better decisions for maintenance, repairs, and site expansion by having confidence in the data they’re using.
Core Challenges and Solutions of Multi-Drone Inspections for Solar Farms
While multi-drone solar farm inspections sound appealing, they must address and overcome several hurdles and challenges to be able to provide a practical solution.
1. Multi-Drone vs Multi-Pilots
It’s one thing to deploy a team of several pilots where each pilot is flying a single drone. In that case, you need to ensure each pilot/drone is allocated to a different section of the solar farm and that they communicate and coordinate between them to avoid collisions and double coverage.
But it becomes even more interesting and challenging when you want one pilot to fly multiple drones in parallel. In that case, you need a smart way to plan and divide the flight mission between the drones and execute it in a safe, fast, and efficient way.
2. Possibility of Collisions
Safety is a primary concern when flying multiple drones simultaneously. In a solar inspection, all the drones need to fly and capture thermal pictures of the PV panel arrays at the same altitude above ground level.
This means the solution must ensure the drones keep a safe distance between them to prevent collisions. Each drone inspects a dedicated part of the farm without overlapping with other drones, and the flight routes are planned so that the drones do not get close to each other.
During the flight, the drones must be aware of nearby drones and return home if they leave their designated area rather than causing a costly collision.
3. Cognitive Load on the Pilot
Pilots will receive any necessary alerts if they need to take manual control to land the drone. Otherwise, the autonomous process allows for streamlined inspections and maintenance scheduling for solar farms.
4. Complying with Regulations at All Times
All drone flights in the U.S. must comply with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations alongside any state and local requirements. Other countries have similar regulations related to drone flight.
Solar farm inspections leveraging drones must abide by these regulations at all times; otherwise, strict penalties may be imposed. In the US, multi-drone flight by a single pilot isn’t allowed by default. Pilots must obtain a waiver demonstrating their ability to pilot multiple drones safely.
Fortunately, the right solution allocates the drones with designated separate inspection zones. If they deviate from these areas or lose radio communication with remote controllers, they are programmed to return to their launch point.
Partner with vHive for Your Multi-Drone Inspections
Multi-drone inspections can cut costs, increase effectiveness, and consistently capture data, but these benefits depend on choosing the right solution. Otherwise, you may overload the pilot and invite additional risks to the organization.
vHive is an industry leader in autonomous drone software that enables coordinated multi-drone inspections. Our Solar Inspections & Analytics solution allows you to reduce the time it takes to inspect your large-scale solar farms, detect and prioritize the issues to repair, and increase your power production.
Ready to see how our solution can take you to the next level? Book a demo today.
