3 Best Drones for Inspection Applications

Whether you are flying under a bridge, over power lines, around buildings or along pipelines; commercial drones can accomplish a variety of tasks that we cannot accomplish alone as quickly or safely. Here at Measur, we help enhance businesses by using drone technology to lower operating costs, decrease risk, minimize downtime and collect high quality, precise data.

A thermal imaging sensor can reveal heat characteristics of objects or items that we cannot see. A few common applications where a thermal imaging sensor is required include: distinguishing various types of water damage, locating animals, solar panel field inspections, tank inspections, roof and building inspections agriculture monitoring, pipeline inspections, and more.

When conducting a visual inspection of an asset, it's important to be as specific as possible. A critical component of a visual inspection is the use of a zoom camera to focus on a specific region of interest. The more zoom that your camera is capable of the farther away from the area of interest you can fly your drone, thus reducing risk. 

The longer the battery life of your drone, the longer you can fly. If you are inspecting a large area, we suggest a drone that has a battery life of at least 30 minutes of continuous flight time. For larger jobs that require more time, you can consider enterprise-level drones that come with up to 50 minutes of continuous flight time.

A smooth, stable hover is necessary to be able to capture clear imagery and accurate data; ensure the drone you select has stability sensors and/or other mechanisms in place such as RTK enabled GPS positioning. 

Now that you have a better understanding of your requirements, let's take a look at three of the best drones for your next inspection application:

The DJI Matrice 350 RTK is DJI's latest commercial drone platform. It is widely used for inspection jobs and by emergency services due to it's 55 minute maximum flight time. The drone can be used in nearly any environment as DJI states, it can operate within a temperature range of -20 C to +55 C. This state-of-the-art UAV will take your inspection game to the next level. The M350 can be used with many different payloads, including the H20N,H20T, P1 and the L2 providing you with accurate, detailed data and imagery. This data can then be quickly processed using DJI's enterprise grade software.  

The  DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise Thermal is the perfect solution for inspection applications. It comes with a high-resolution 640 × 512 thermal and visual sensor that supports up to 56x hybrid zoom. The RTK module is capable of providing you with centimetre-level positioning accuracy making sure that you capture accurate details in your next mission.

The Acecore Zoe is a lightweight, multipurpose drone designed for commercial use. It's compact, fold-able frame is designed to meet the versatile demands required within the inspection industry. The Zoe is a heavy-duty UAV used to lift payloads up to 6 KG in weight. The drone accomplishes this with ease due to its low weight, four rotor design and brushless motor system.