Are satellites better than drones for utility network monitoring?

This is a question that many customers ask us. And, like all good questions, there’s no simple answer to that. 

Many power, gas and water utilities are reviewing their asset monitoring strategy in order to move from calendar-based inspections and O&M actions to risk and condition-based ones. In this journey, the digitalization of asset data is key. While in-situ sensors provide continuous, detailed data streams that allow faster responses when damages and faults occur, their cost doesn’t allow their deployment at scale. Moreover, they generally provide information on one or two specific network risks but struggle to provide information about external risks such as the vegetation, land motion, floods and human activities in the network corridor, which makes it hard for them to prevent future network faults before they happen.

This is where technologies like satellites and drones come into play. Satellites and drones give asset managers the possibility to scan the environment in and around the Right of Way to understand potential encroachments such as trees or new building works which usually cause around 60% of network faults. However, there are several differences between the capabilities of both, which make satellites and drones more complementary than alternative to one another.

In very simple terms, satellites are better when you need to quickly collect data, run analytics and prioritise risks across hundreds or thousands of km of utility networks at tens of centimetres of resolution. The different types of sensors allow satellites to be useful for different use cases: from prioritising vegetation management activities, to understanding where gas and water leaks are, to detecting new dangerous construction works in the RoW, land movements and floods, as well as showing the biodiversity of a territory. Satellites are effective at large scale and they don’t require any initial investment or flight permits to be used. However, satellites don’t provide the same spatial resolution in the centimetres as drones.

Drones too, can carry a variety of sensors, such as optical, thermal, lidar, and they are great in providing centimetre resolution imagery and data of specific portions of a utility network. The resolution that drones can achieve means that they can provide in-depth analyses on the overheated elements of power lines, corrosion of overhead equipment, and even small defects. However, they won’t ever be able to achieve the same scale and speed of data capture as satellites, both for technical and regulatory constraints.

When combined, satellites can provide a high-level overview of the areas across an entire network most at risk of encroachments, and those where environmental factors could cause stress in the equipment. Drones could then be deployed in those higher risk areas in order to provide a more detailed assessment of both the risks and the status of the equipment.

Satellites and drones are not alternative technologies: they respond to different business needs and are great when they complement each other. Indeed, Spottitt is happy to work with companies like Hepta Airborne, one of the main providers of drone-based inspections, in order to help our power network operators get a more complete, digital asset monitoring solution. 

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Comparison of Infrastructure Monitoring Technologies

Throughout years, infrastructure monitoring has progressed from manual field inspections to advanced remote sensing using satellites, drones, LIDAR, and AI-powered analytics.

Each technology brings distinct advantages and limitations, making the choice complex.

This comparison sheet offers an overview of technologies to help identify the best-fit solutions for linear infrastructure owners and operators.

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Spottitt Metrics Factory – May Update: New Platform Developments

Welcome to your monthly roundup of the latest updates from the Spottitt Metrics Factory platform. As always, we’re working to make your asset risk analytics experience more insightful, flexible and faster.

Future Climate Data Models Now Integrated
Understanding how climate change affects infrastructure is no longer limited to the past or current. Spottitt MF now integrates future climate scenario models, based on global models developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

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All About Satellite Earth Observation Data

Welcome to Spottitt “Let’s Talk Satellite EO Data” eBook – your ultimate guide to understanding satellite-derived data types, their applications in asset monitoring, of the different types of data providers, and practical tips for navigating the challenges of using remote sensing data.

This resource is designed to help you make well-informed decisions about the use and integration of EO data, ultimately to ensure the safety and performance of your critical infrastructure.

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Spottitt MF Monthly Update: New Features & Enhancements

At Spottitt, we’re constantly working to enhance your experience with our analytics platform, by making data visualization and reporting more intuitive, flexible, and insightful. This month, we’re introducing several updates which give you even more control and customization.

🌍 Your Free Climate Data Now Displayed as a Gradient Layer in a Map Format
Just like our other data layers, your free climate data can now be viewed on the map in a compact gradient color format. While generating a report on how each climate parameter impacts your assets is the best way to match this data to your assets and can be nice to view these data layers – helping you assess environmental exposure at a glance.

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Introducing an Upgraded Spottitt MF 2.0: What’s New? Part 2.

The upgraded Spottitt platform now empowers users to customize reports in a single step, using multiple data layer types, filters, and display preferences.

Layer types refer to the specific input data leveraged for a monitoring use case.

Depending on the source data purchased through Spottitt MF, the available layer types might include but are not limited to: Optical Vegetation and Man Made Classes, Wind, Precipitation and Temperature Classes, SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) Land & Asset Motion Classes, Digital Elevation Data Classes.

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Introducing an Upgraded Spottitt MF 2.0: What’s New? Part 1.

As climate change intensifies and extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, it’s clear that understanding climate and weather variables is no longer just a ‘nice to have’ for asset owners. Recent disasters all over the globe, including the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, USA, only emphasise the necessity of integrating climate and weather data into asset monitoring workflows.

Building on our past successful climate impact analytics projects, such as updating severe weather maps for SPEN, we are thrilled to announce the coming soon launch of Spottitt Metrics Factory 2.0.