How LiDAR Can Be Used for Risk Assessment of Plant Overgrowth near Power lines

04/04/19

“How can we use LiDAR to prevent utility line failure from plant overgrowth?”

When there is too much foliage near a power line, the potential for fire can vastly increase. This means that utility companies will need to continuously monitor their transmission assets to build resilience. This can be extremely expensive to carry out and may not be within the reach of many company’s portfolios. However, what if we could use newer technology to solve this problem? Well, LiDAR has the ability to measure distances between objects and record them into real-time data. And we also know that drones can be used for autonomous scouting operations for a low financial overhead. So what if we were to hook up LiDAR to a drone and use it to monitor a transmission line trail? Well, this is How LiDAR Can Be Used for Risk Assessment of Plant Overgrowth near Power lines. Utilities in California should take note due to the dry conditions causing fertile conditions for forest fires and the close proximity of Silicon Valley.

Image credit greenvalleyintl.com