Property Management

Overview

A multi-national retailer engaged DroneHive to collect aerial data to monitor maintenance and improvement needs of their hundreds of distribution centers across the United States. The collection of highly detailed photos and videos showed the state of these distribution centers’ roofs, facades, loading bays and drive lanes. Although the retailer supported facility management and engineering expertise in-house, they required a trusted partner to perform aerial data collection. Safety, FAA compliance, and ensuring facility operating hours were unaffected were paramount to the success of this project.

Method

These distribution centers are large with over 100 docking bays for semi-trucks. We standardized the deliverables across all sites to ensure consistent quality and comprehensive coverage for sites from California to New York. DroneHive pilots flew a multi-rotor UAS drone equipped with a high-resolution sensor (20 megapixels or greater) as well as a high-resolution thermal sensor (640×512 , radiometric, 30Hz frame rate, 13mm lens: 45deg FoV ) for mapping. Deliverables of each individual site visit included:

• A comprehensive high-resolution 2D map of the entire property
• A high-resolution thermal map of the roof for leak inspection and HVAC system health monitoring
• A fully stitched image of each façade with 80/80 overlap flown at 30ft above the roofline with oblique angle of the imagery sensor gimbal
• 1 image of each docking bay flown at 15 feet AGL (slightly higher than a standard semi-trailer)
• 1 “Nadir” photo from 400ft to capture the entire property
• 8 oblique images of the sides and corners

Result

The first objective DroneHive achieved was by deploying more than 50 expert remote pilots with the advanced equipment required to inspect over 100 distribution facilities in an 8-week period. Navigating weather, site level management coordination, active semi-truck traffic and tight timelines proved challenging, but was successful with the ongoing support of DroneHive’s internal Flight Operations team. The program was deemed successful by the facility management team and DroneHive is actively involved across all of the retailer’s distribution centers today.