The district heating pipes are typically around 1 meter below the surface. To ensure optimal results the data collection was performed at night during winter time. In post-processing all the thermal data was composed to a thermal mosaic and points-of-interest are identified and categorized. The processed results were presented in Drone Systems’ web platform, Teraplan.dk, which provides the district heating company with the toolset to utilize the results to locate and remedy both immediate and upcoming ruptures. On the long-term scale, the results can be used to perform strategic and prioritized renovation planning.

One of the inspected sections was observed with the identification of one very large leak, one moderate sized leak and two hot components.

‘We have been using UgCS as our supplier for ground station software for the past four years, and we are very satisfied with their product. Our thermal data collection is performed in a cold and challenging environment, with various drone platforms. The versatile software UgCS is, makes it possible for us to execute pre-planned routes on all our drone platforms. In that regard, UgCS has been helpful and committed to providing targeted assistance and added features to UgCS over time, that has enhanced our efficiency, workflow and data collection quality. We find that UgCS are both professional, agile and innovative while maintaining a pragmatic solution approach’, Sune Nielsen, COO at Drone Systems says.

In 2021, Drone Systems is covering 2185 acres in Copenhagen with UAV flights managed with UgCS.