TECHNICAL FEATURES
Indoor drones like the Elios 3 present a different solution.
8 key benefits of drones for wastewater inspections
The deployment of drones for wastewater inspections can bring massive improvements in terms of safety, time, and cost-efficiency. Here's our list of the top 8 benefits of using drones for wastewater inspections.
Traditionally, sewer management companies rely on three different methods for conducting wastewater inspections. These methods are:
• Manned entry
• Raft or sled-mounted remote inspection, typically using CCTV cameras
• Robotic inspection, using CCTV cameras and/or other types of sensors (LiDAR, SONAR, and others)
Manned entry can help inspectors collect detailed data on the condition of the asset but presents safety concerns. It is also
impossible in certain scenarios, due either to access issues or to the inability to get temporary bypass of flows.
CCTV on a raft or sled is one of the most common methods sewer inspectors use to collect visual data remotely. But once the camera is in the water there is no way to control where it’s pointed or how fast it moves through the system, and this lack of control leads to unreliable data capture.
Robotic solutions with multi-sensor platforms (CCTV, SONAR, laser profiling, or LiDAR) can yield a huge amount of data, but are often very expensive. And their size can present significant issues with access—most robots used in sewer inspections are so big they need to be lowered into the sewer system with a small crane.
Small, stable, and easy to control even in high flow conditions, a drone like the Elios 3 can enter a wastewater system and collect high quality visual data without any advance preparation, and at a relatively low cost.
Here are eight ways that indoor drones are changing wastewater inspections for the better.
1. Savings
Drones help make wastewater inspections more efficient by removing the need for inspectors to physically enter sewer systems, thereby eliminating extra personnel costs and helping inspectors realise significant savings.
An inspector in
Barcelona placing a drone into a manhole
24 | March 2025 |
draintraderltd.com
Péter Kövessi, former Director of Client Services at Flind—a company that helps oversee the massive sewer infrastructure in the city of Barcelona—estimates that wastewater infrastructure inspections conducted by drone are twice as efficient as human inspections and 40% less expensive per meter of inspection.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
